Polymer materials for fusion reactors

Diffraction studies in polymeric and other beam sensitive materials may bring to mind the many experiments where diffracted intensity has been used as a measure of the electron dose required to destroy fine structure in the TEM. But this paper is concerned with a range of cases where the diffraction pattern itself contains the important information.In the first case, electron diffraction from paraffins, degraded polyethylene and polyethylene single crystals, all the samples are highly ordered, and their crystallographic structure is well known. The diffraction patterns fade on irradiation and may also change considerably in a-spacing, increasing the unit cell volume on irradiation. The effect is large and continuous far C94H190 paraffin and for PE, while for shorter chains to C 28H58 the change is less, levelling off at high dose, Fig.l. It is also found that the change in a-spacing increases at higher dose rates and at higher irradiation temperatures.

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Alignment of small He-Bubbles during in situ deformation of Al-foils

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100109124 ◽

1978 ◽

Vol 36 (1) ◽

pp. 396-397

Author(s):

E. Ruedl ◽

P. Schiller

Keyword(s):

Fusion Reactor ◽

Matrix Material ◽

Fusion Reactors ◽

First Wall ◽

Potential Matrix ◽

In Situ Deformation ◽

Α Particles ◽

Metal Aluminium

The low Z metal aluminium is a potential matrix material for the first wall in fusion reactors. A drawback in the application of A1 is the rel= atively high amount of He produced in it under fusion reactor conditions. Knowledge about the behaviour of He during irradiation and deformation in Al, especially near the surface, is therefore important.Using the TEM we have studied Al disks of 3 mm diameter and 0.2 mm thickness, which were perforated at the centre by double jet polishing. These disks were bombarded at∽200°C to various doses with α-particles, impinging at any angle and energy up to 1.5 MeV at both surfaces. The details of the irradiations are described in Ref.1. Subsequent observation indicated that in such specimens uniformly distributed He-bubbles are formed near the surface in a layer several μm thick (Fig.1).After bombardment the disks were deformed at 20°C during observation by means of a tensile device in a Philips EM 300 microscope.

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Structure-property relationships of PE/PP sandwiched films

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100126998 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 45 ◽

pp. 454-455

Author(s):

J. Petermann ◽

G. Broza ◽

U. Rieck ◽

A. Jaballah ◽

A. Kawaguchi

Keyword(s):

Mechanical Tests ◽

Polymer Materials ◽

Ionic Crystals ◽

Structure Property ◽

Polymer Systems ◽

Structure Property Relationships ◽

Oriented Films ◽

Materials Used ◽

Polymer Laminates ◽

Heated Glass

Oriented overgrowth of polymer materials onto ionic crystals is well known and recently it was demonstrated that this epitaxial crystallisation can also occur in polymer/polymer systems, under certain conditions. The morphologies and the resulting physical properties of such systems will be presented, especially the influence of epitaxial interfaces on the adhesion of polymer laminates and the mechanical properties of epitaxially crystallized sandwiched layers.Materials used were polyethylene, PE, Lupolen 6021 DX (HDPE) and 1810 D (LDPE) from BASF AG; polypropylene, PP, (PPN) provided by Höchst AG and polybutene-1, PB-1, Vestolen BT from Chemische Werke Hüls. Thin oriented films were prepared according to the method of Petermann and Gohil, by winding up two different polymer films from two separately heated glass-plates simultaneously with the help of a motor driven cylinder. One double layer was used for TEM investigations, while about 1000 sandwiched layers were taken for mechanical tests.

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Electron spectroscopic imaging (ESI) on multiphase polymer materials

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100153713 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 47 ◽

pp. 348-349

Author(s):

H.-J. Cantow ◽

M. Kunz ◽

M. Möller

Keyword(s):

Energy Loss ◽

Melt Spinning ◽

Chromatic Aberration ◽

Element Distribution ◽

Polymer Materials ◽

Specific Energy Loss ◽

Transmission Electron ◽

Multicomponent Polymer ◽

Diffraction Patterns ◽

Image Planes

In transmission electron microscopy the natural contrast of polymers is very low. Thus the contrast has to be enhanced by staining with heavy metals. The resolution is limited by the size of the staining particles and by the fact that electrons with different energy are focused in different image planes due to the chromatic aberration of the magnetic lenses. The integration of an electron energy loss spectrometer into the optical coloumn of a transmission electron microscope offers the possibility to use monoenergetic electrons and to select electrons with a certain energy for imaging. Thus contrast and resolution are enhanced. By imaging only electrons with an element specific energy loss the element distribution in the sample can be obtained. In addition, elastic bright field images and diffraction patterns yield excellent resolution. Some applications of the method on multicomponent polymer materials are discussed.Bulk polymer samples were prepared by ultramicrotoming at room temperature or well below the glass transition temperature. Very thin films for the direct observation of the structure in semicrystalline polymers were obtained by melt-spinning. Specimens were examined with a ZEISS CEM 902 operated at 80 kV.

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Quantitative high-resolution electron microscopy (HREM) of defects in ordered polymers

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100163290 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 54 ◽

pp. 166-167

Author(s):

Patricia M. Wilson ◽

David C. Martin

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Electron Beam ◽

High Resolution ◽

Liquid Crystalline ◽

High Resolution Electron Microscopy ◽

Polymer Materials ◽

Scattered Electron ◽

Crystalline Polymers ◽

Resolution Electron ◽

Beam Damage

Efforts in our laboratory and elsewhere have established the utility of low dose high resolution electron microscopy (HREM) for imaging the microstructure of crystalline and liquid crystalline polymers. In a number of polymer systems, direct imaging of the lattice spacings by HREM has provided information about the size, shape, and relative orientation of ordered domains in these materials. However, because of the extent of disorder typical in many polymer microstructures, and because of the sensitivity of most polymer materials to electron beam damage, there have been few studies where the contrast observed in HREM images has been analyzed in a quantitative fashion.Here, we discuss two instances where quantitative information about HREM images has been used to provide new insight about the organization of crystalline polymers in the solid-state. In the first, we study the distortion of the polymer lattice planes near the core of an edge dislocation and compare these results to theories of dislocations in anisotropic and liquid crystalline solids. In the second, we investigate the variations in HREM contrast near the edge of wedge-shaped samples. The polymer used in this study was the diacetylene DCHD, which is stable to electron beam damage (Jc = 20 C/cm2) and highly crystalline. The instrument used in this work was a JEOL 4000 EX HRTEM with a beam blanidng device. More recently, the 4000 EX has been installed with instrumentation for dynamically recording scattered electron beam currents.

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