Abstract EN:

ITER - International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor - is built in Cadarache, is designed to demonstrate the feasibility of controlled nuclear fusion on earth for the production of clean and sustainable energy. Tungsten (W), the chosen plasma facing-material (PFM) for divertor will be irradiated by a high flux of particles including hydrogen isotopes (HIs) during its operation. Several fundamental issues related to the operation of ITER remain open, including questions concerning the interaction HI and PFM which damages the surface of the vessel, increases the risk of hazard and prevents fusion from occurring. This is the aim of this Ph.D. thesis by means of electronic structure calculations within the density functional theory (DFT). While the manuscript consists of six chapters, it can be grouped into three main parts. In the first one, we investigate hydrogen coverage on the tungsten W(110) and W(100) surfaces via periodic DFT, providing the most stable configurations that hydrogen forms on the surface, step-wise, from the bare surface up to saturation. Since DFT data are only valid at a temperature of 0K, we followed in the second part a statistical approach to make the surface coverage temperature and pressure dependent. In the last part of this document, we focus on the mechanism of hydrogen diffusion in the sub-surface and on the recombination of molecular hydrogen on top of both surfaces. In particular, we explore the surface-coverage dependency of these mechanisms and how it affects their energetics and related kinetics