| Summary: | During the service life of plasma-facing components, they are exposed to cyclic stationary and transient thermal loads. The former causes thermal fatigue and potentially detachment between the plasma-facing material tungsten and the structural Cu-based materials (divertor) and steel (first wall). The latter causes surface roughening, cracking, or even melting, which could drastically increase the erosion rate. Employing thin flexible W wires (W<sub>w</sub>) with a diameter of a few hundred µm can reduce mechanical stresses, and we demonstrated their crack resilience against transient loads within first proof of principle studies. Here, status and future paths towards the large-scale production of such W<sub>w</sub> assemblies, including techniques for realizing feasible joints with Cu, steel, or W, are presented. Using wire-based laser metal deposition, we were able to create a homogeneous and shallow infiltration of about 200 µm of the W<sub>w</sub> assembly with steel. A high-heat-flux test on such a µ-brush (10 × 10 × 5 mm<sup>3</sup> W<sub>w</sub> on a ~0.5 mm thick steel layer) using 5 MW/m<sup>2</sup> for 2000 cycles was performed without loss of any wire. Microstructural examination after and infrared analysis during the test showed no significant signs of degradation of the joint.
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