Studies of material deposition on the graphite divertor tile after the 2019 experimental campaign in EAST

•Detailed analysis of the deposits on the surface of the graphite tile from the divertor dome region has been made after the 2019 experimental campaign.•The porous globular deposits on exposed graphite tile were mainly stacked by columnar grains with size of 2–5 μm and small crystal particles with several hundreds of nanometers in size.•The thickness of the deposits varied from several micrometers to about 120 μm.•As the SiC coating on the graphite tile has a rough surface and exhibited valleys and hills, the deposits on the valleys were typically thicker than that on the hills.•Li was in the form of Li2CO3. And Mo and W were in MoO3 and WO3 respectively.•The total content of Li2CO3 was found to be higher than 90 wt% with a corresponding Li density in deposits of about 7.22 μg/mm−2 in average.•The intensity of Li was strong and changed only slightly with the depth, which was different from other elements. Elements of W, Mo, Fe, Cu seemed to be more concentrated at the near surface with a depth of about 4 μm.