3.4: New Materials, Components, and Technologies

Develop the new materials, components, and technologies necessary to make fusion energy a reality.

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The environment created in a fusion reactor poses great challenges to materials and components. Materials must be able to withstand high fluxes of hot neutrons and endure high temperatures and high thermal gradients, with minimal degradation. Our strategy includes the following emphases: • Design materials at the molecular scale to create novel materials that posses the necessary highperformance properties, leveraging investments through our Fusion Energy Sciences program with the materials research of our Basic Energy Sciences program. • Create additional facilities, as may be needed, as a follow-on to the ITER project, for testing materials and components for high duty-factor operation in a fusion power plant environment. • Explore “liquid first-wall” materials to ameliorate firstwall requirements for both inertial fusion energy (IFE) and advanced magnetic fusion energy (MFE) concepts.

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