A review of lithium application for the plasma-facing material in EAST Tokamak

As a low-Z material, lithium is widely tested and used in tokamak devices for particle recycling and impurity control to improve plasma performance. Lithium application as plasma-facing materials via different methods, such as coating, injection and flowing liquid limiter, has been investigated more than 10 years on EAST. This paper presents the development of the lithium techniques applied on EAST, and reviews the progresses on the investigation of its interaction with plasma and its effects on the improvement on the plasma performances. In addition, this paper further discusses the potential applications of lithium technique in future fusion devices.