Behaviour of metallic droplets in a tokamak plasma

Micrometre sized tantalum droplets were injected into a tokamak plasma by a controllable arcing gun located behind the wall. The trajectories of the ablating particles were photographed by a high speed camera. Various possible mechanisms which may explain the observed curvature of the particle paths are discussed. The migration of the ablated material in the tokamak was studied by post-mortem analysis of collector probes and limiters.