An Ion Beam Simulation of the Swelling of U3Si

1988 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles W. Allen ◽  
Robert C. Birtcher ◽  
Lynn E. Rehn ◽  
Gerard L. Hofman

ABSTRACTUranium intermetallics are under consideration as possible low-enrichment reactor fuels. These materials divide into two classes with regard to dimensional stability during their service lifetime: those which suffer extreme dimensional growth and those which do not. It has been suggested that the rapid-swelling materials are those that become glassy under irradiation while the low-swelling materials are those that remain crystalline. The structural and dimensional stabilities of U3Si (depleted uranium) have been investigated as a function of temperature duning Kr irradiation by in situ. HVEM observations. Below 550 K, this material becomes glassy during 1.0 MeV Kr irradiation. Prolonged irradiation at 475 K also leads to rapid darkening of the TEM bright field image of the specimen, growth of the initial perforation at rates which far exceed those due to sputtering, and formation of additional thin areas and holes. Irradiation at 615 K does not result in observable image darkening or rapid growth of the initial perforation. After 2×1020 Kr m-2, the crystalline material irradiated at 615 K is stabilized against subsequent ion-irradiation-induced amorphization and growth at 475 K. Similarly, after 2×1020 Kr m-2 at 475 K, the glassy phase persists at 620 K under additional Kr irradiation, and the rapid growth continues. The mechanism of the irradiation-induced growth of the glassy material does not involve gas precipitation but rather may involve deformation by viscous flow assisted by the defects generated during irradiation.

2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 1758-1768 ◽  
Author(s):  
M-O. Ruault ◽  
F. Fortuna ◽  
H. Bernas ◽  
J. Chaumont ◽  
O. Kaïtasov ◽  
...  

Crucial features of materials evolution due to ion beam irradiation are often revealed only through studies of process dynamics. We review some significant examples of such experiments performed over the last 25 years with the Orsay in situ facility: a transmission electron microscope setup (with temperature stages operating between 4 and 1000 K) on a medium energy (3–570 keV) ion beam line. New results on nanocavity evolution and metal silicide nanoprecipitates in Si are presented briefly.We show that CoSi2 nanoprecipitate growth is mainly due to the constant Co atom contribution from the ion beam, and CoSi2 platelet growth is the result of a three-dimensional to two-dimensional growth mode transition.


Author(s):  
D.I. Potter ◽  
A. Taylor

Thermal aging of Ni-12.8 at. % A1 and Ni-12.7 at. % Si produces spatially homogeneous dispersions of cuboidal γ'-Ni3Al or Ni3Si precipitate particles arrayed in the Ni solid solution. We have used 3.5-MeV 58Ni+ ion irradiation to examine the effect of irradiation during precipitation on precipitate morphology and distribution. The nearness of free surfaces produced unusual morphologies in foils thinned prior to irradiation. These thin-foil effects will be important during in-situ investigations of precipitation in the HVEM. The thin foil results can be interpreted in terms of observations from bulk irradiations which are described first.Figure 1a is a dark field image of the γ' precipitate 5000 Å beneath the surface(∿1200 Å short of peak damage) of the Ni-Al alloy irradiated in bulk form. The inhomogeneous spatial distribution of γ' results from the presence of voids and dislocation loops which can be seen in the bright field image of the same area, Fig. 1b.


Author(s):  
Charles W. Allen ◽  
Robert C. Birtcher

The uranium silicides, including U3Si, are under study as candidate low enrichment nuclear fuels. Ion beam simulations of the in-reactor behavior of such materials are performed because a similar damage structure can be produced in hours by energetic heavy ions which requires years in actual reactor tests. This contribution treats one aspect of the microstructural behavior of U3Si under high energy electron irradiation and low dose energetic heavy ion irradiation and is based on in situ experiments, performed at the HVEM-Tandem User Facility at Argonne National Laboratory. This Facility interfaces a 2 MV Tandem ion accelerator and a 0.6 MV ion implanter to a 1.2 MeV AEI high voltage electron microscope, which allows a wide variety of in situ ion beam experiments to be performed with simultaneous irradiation and electron microscopy or diffraction.At elevated temperatures, U3Si exhibits the ordered AuCu3 structure. On cooling below 1058 K, the intermetallic transforms, evidently martensitically, to a body-centered tetragonal structure (alternatively, the structure may be described as face-centered tetragonal, which would be fcc except for a 1 pet tetragonal distortion). Mechanical twinning accompanies the transformation; however, diferences between electron diffraction patterns from twinned and non-twinned martensite plates could not be distinguished.


Author(s):  
Zoltán Balogh-Michels ◽  
Igor Stevanovic ◽  
Aurelio Borzi ◽  
Andreas Bächli ◽  
Daniel Schachtler ◽  
...  

AbstractIn this work, we present our results about the thermal crystallization of ion beam sputtered hafnia on 0001 SiO2 substrates and its effect on the laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT). The crystallization process was studied using in-situ X-ray diffractometry. We determined an activation energy for crystallization of 2.6 ± 0.5 eV. It was found that the growth of the crystallites follows a two-dimensional growth mode. This, in combination with the high activation energy, leads to an apparent layer thickness-dependent crystallization temperature. LIDT measurements @355 nm on thermally treated 3 quarter-wave thick hafnia layers show a decrement of the 0% LIDT for 1 h @773 K treatment. Thermal treatment for 5 h leads to a significant increment of the LIDT values.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Paul Allain ◽  
Osman El-Atwani ◽  
Alex Cimaroli ◽  
Daniel L. Rokusek ◽  
Sami Ortoleva ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTIon-beam sputtering (IBS) has been studied as a means for scalable, mask-less nanopatterning of surfaces. Patterning at the nanoscale has been achieved for numerous types of materials including: semiconductors, metals and insulators. Although much work has been focused on tailoring nanopatterning by systematic ion-beam parameter manipulation, limited work has addressed elucidating on the underlying mechanisms for self-organization of multi-component surfaces. In particular there has been little attention to correlate the surface chemistry variation during ion irradiation with the evolution of surface morphology and nanoscale self-organization. Moreover the role of surface impurities on patterning is not well known and characterization during the time-scale of modification remains challenging. This work summarizes an in-situ approach to characterize the evolution of surface chemistry during irradiation and its correlation to surface nanopatterning for a variety of multi-components surfaces. The work highlights the importance and role of surface impurities in nanopatterning of a surface during low-energy ion irradiation. In particular, it shows the importance of irradiation-driven mechanisms in GaSb(100) nanopatterning by low-energy ions and how the study of these systems can be impacted by oxide formation.


1995 ◽  
Vol 396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles W. Allen ◽  
Loren L. Funk ◽  
Edward A. Ryan

AbstractDuring 1995, a state-of-the-art intermediate voltage electron microscope (IVEM) has been installed in the HVEM-Tandem Facility with in situ ion irradiation capabilities similar to those of the HVEM. A 300 kV Hitachi H-9000NAR has been interfaced to the two ion accelerators of the Facility, with a spatial resolution for imaging which is nearly an order of magnitude better than that for the 1.2 MV HVEM which dates from the early 1970s. The HVEM remains heavily utilized for electron- and ion irradiation-related materials studies, nevertheless, especially those for which less demanding microscopy is adequate. The capabilities and limitations of this IVEM and HVEM are compared. Both the HVEM and IVEM are part of the DOE funded User Facility and therefore are available to the scientific community for materials studies, free of charge for non-proprietary research.


1992 ◽  
Vol 279 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. T. Motta ◽  
L. M. Howe ◽  
P. R. Okamoto

ABSTRACTThin foils of Zircaloy-4 were irradiated with 350 KeV 40Ar ions in the dual ion beam/HVEM facility at Argonne National Laboratory at 300 – 650 K. The irradiation-induced araorphization of the intermetallic precipitates Zr (Cr, Fe)2 and Zr2 (Ni, Fe) was studied in situ. For Zr (Cr,Fe)2 precipitates the dose-to-amorphization was found to increase exponentially with temperature, with a critical temperature of about 650 K. The amorphization morphology was shown to be homogeneous, with no preferential site for nucleation, in contrast to neutron-irradiation amorphization which started at the precipitate-matrix interface. For Zr2 (Ni,Fe) precipitates it was found that amorphization occurred at 550 K and 600 K, whereas in neutron irradiation no amorphization has been observed at those temperatures. The results are discussed in the context of the previous experimental results of neutron and electron irradiation and likely amorphization mechanisms are proposed.


1996 ◽  
Vol 439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles W. Allen ◽  
Edward A. Ryan

AbstractSince Fall 1995, a state-of-the-art intermediate voltage electron microscope (IVEM) has been operational in the HVEM-Tandem Facility with in situ ion irradiation capabilities similar to those of the HVEM of the Facility. A 300 kV Hitachi H-9000NAR is interfaced to the two ion accelerators of the Facility, with a demonstrated point-topoint spatial resolution for imaging of 0.25 nm with the ion beamline attached to the microscope. The IVEM incorporates a Faraday cup system for ion dosimetry with measurement aperture 6.5 cm from the TEM specimen, which was described in Symposium A of the 1995 MRS Fall Meeting. The IVEM is now employed for a variety of in situ ion beam studies ranging from low dose ion damage experiments with GaAs, in which damage zones individual displacement cascades are observed, to implantation studies in metals, in which irradiation-induced noble gas precipitate mobility is studied in real time. In this presentation, the new instrumentation and its specifications will be described briefly, several basic concepts relating to in situ experiments in transmission electron microscopes will be summarized and examples of in situ experiments will be presented which exploit the experimental capabilities of this new user facility instrumentation.


1988 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 1063-1071 ◽  
Author(s):  
U. G. Akano ◽  
D. A. Thompson ◽  
W. W. Smeltzer ◽  
J. A. Davies

Atomic mixing in Ni/Pd bilayer films due to 120 keV Ar+ irradiation in the thermally assisted regime (523−673 K) has been measured, in situ, using Rutherford backscattering with 2.0 MeV 4He+ ions. The mean diameter of grains in these polycrystallinc films increased from 10 to 60 nm, following Ar+ bombardment at 573 K. Initial mixing was rapid due to grain boundary diffusion and incorporation of the metal solute into the solvent metal matrix by grain growth; this mixing stage was essentially complete within 10 min for annealed films or after an Ar+ dose of 4 × 1015 cm−2 in irradiated films (10 min irradiation). No further measurable mixing occurred in the annealed, unirradiated films. For the irradiated samples the initial rapid mixing (6−35 atoms/ion) was followed by a slower mixing stage of 0.7–1.8 atoms/ion for irradiation doses of up to 2.5 × 1016 Ar+ cm−2. The Ar+ bombardment gave rise to much smaller mixing levels when the Pd films were deposited on large-grain or single-crystal Ni. A diffusion analysis demonstrates that the effective diffusivity, Deff, for ion-irradiation-enhanced mixing in the thermally assisted regime satisfied the relation Dl < Deff < DB, where the ratio of the grain boundary to lattice diffusivity was DB/Dl > 106.


1992 ◽  
Vol 279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenji Gamo

ABSTRACTFocused ion beam (FIB) techniques have many advantages which stem from being maskless and have attracted much interest for various applications includingin situprocessing. However, reduction of damage and improvement of throughput are problems awaiting solution. For reduction of damage, low energy FIB is promising and for improvement of throughput, understanding of the basic processes and optimization of process parameters based on this understanding is crucial. This paper discusses characteristics of low energy FIB system, ion beam assisted etching and ion implantation, and effect of damage with putting emphasize onin situfabrication. Low energy (0.05–25keV) FIB system being developed forms -lOOnm diameter ion beams and is connected with molecular beam epitaxy system. Many results indicate that low damage, maskless ion beam assisted etching is feasible using low energy beams. Recently it was also shown that for ion beam assisted etching of GaAs, pulse irradiation yields very high etching rate of 500/ion. This indicates that the optimization of the relative ratio of ion irradiation and reactant gas supply as important to achieve high etching rate. Low energy FIB is also important for selective doping for high electron mobility heterostructures of GaAs/GaAlAs, because high mobility is significantly degraded by a slight damage.


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