The jury’s first prize for the ‘Hidden Beauty of Science’ contest was awarded to the researcher from IRFM (SI2P/GCFPM), Elodie Bernard.
Organized by the French Embassy in Japan, “科学の幽玄 – Hidden Beauty of Science” competition honours images taken via Franco-Japanese collaboration.
This year, the jury awarded the first prize to Elodie Bernard’s « tungsten corolla »: the impact of a molten particle collected on one of the samples placed on the first wall of the WEST tokamak as part of a collaboration between IRFM and NIFS, renewed in 2023.
Tungsten samples are prepared in Japan, and then placed in sample holders fixed to the first wall of the tokamak; there, they witness all the events of the campaign, from the conditioning phases to the plasma discharges. Their analysis by scanning electron microscopy (as shown here) or transmission electron microscopy enables us to study the in situ evolution of surface conditions of materials faced with thermal cycling, boronization and exposure to particles escaping from the magnetic field lines, as plasma conditions evolve.
Learn more about “科学の幽玄 – Hidden Beauty of Science” photo competition : https://concoursyugen.jp.ambafrance.org/