Relationship between topographic parameters and BRDF for tungsten surfaces in the visible spectrum

In metallic fusion devices, parasitic light originating from multiple reflections on the wall is a major problem for the interpretation of optical diagnostics. Strong stray light affects several optical diagnostics in ITER. One possibility to cope with this reflected light is to use photonic simulation, which can accurately predict the behavior of light within complex 3D geometry. A prerequisite is to get a good description of the reflection model, represented by the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF), based on optical measurements of in-vessel materials. To avoid complicated measurements using goniophotometer to get the BRDF, one possibility is to link surface optical properties and topography characteristics, such as roughness measurements, for example, using the classical Bennett’s formula. Measurements were performed using two experimental goniophotometers to fully characterize the BRDF of tungsten samples with different roughness values. Surface topography was measured using a three-dimensional laser scanning confocal microscope. Several parameters were extracted from these measurements including the arithmetic average roughness (Ra), the root mean square roughness (RMS), the Surface Inclination Angle Distribution and furthermore its mean value δm and the power spectral density (PSD). The correlations of BRDF model parameters deduced from the measurements are compared with the previous topographic parameters. The initial results on several tungsten samples show that Ra, which is the usual measure of surface roughness, is not the most suitable metric to link with the reflection behavior of the surface. In contrast, the PSD and the surface inclination angle are interesting metrics for describing the reflected light.