Wetting and spreading of liquid lithium onto nanocolumnar tungsten coatings tailored through the topography of stainless steel substrates

The use of liquid metal as an alternative to cover the plasma-exposed areas of fusion reactors has called for the development of substrates where refilling and metal spreading occur readily and at reasonably low temperatures. In the search for common materials for this purpose, we show that nanostructured tungsten coatings deposited on stainless steel (SS)…