Helium Bubbles and Blistering in a Nanolayered Metal/Hydride Composite

Helium is insoluble in most metals and precipitates out to form nanoscale bubbles when the concentration is greater than 1 at.%, which can alter the material properties. Introducing controlled defects such as multilayer interfaces may offer some level of helium bubble management. This study investigates the effects of multilayered composites on helium behavior in ion-implanted, multilayered ErD2/Mo thin film composites. Following in-situ and ex-situ helium implantation, scanning and transmission electron microscopy showed the development of spherical helium bubbles within the matrix, but primarily at the layer interfaces. Bubble linkage and surface blistering is observed after high fluence ex-situ helium implantation. These results show the ability of metallic multilayers to alter helium bubble distributions even in the presence of a hydride layer, increasing the lifetime of materials in helium environments.

Effects of helium implantation fluence on the crystal-ion-slicing fabrication of Y-cut lithium niobate film

In the present work, the contribution of Helium implantation fluence on the Crystal-Ion-Slicing fabrication (CIS) of Y-cut LiNbO3 film were systematically investigated. Y-cut Lithium niobate (LN) thin films with a submicron thickness on the Y-cut LN substrates were successfully fabricated by CIS technique by employing He implantation. By varying the implantation fluence, the structure evolution of the LN exfoliation layer was systematically investigated by Rutherford backscattering/channeling (RBS/C), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, as well as Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). Upon gradually increasing the implantation fluence from 1.0 x 1016 to 4.0 x 1016 cm-2, the lattice damage together with the tensile strain in the as-implanted LN becomes intensive according to the Raman spectroscopy investigations. In addition to the crystalline quality, the root mean square roughness becomes 1.4 nm upon increasing fluence till 4.0 x 1016 cm-2. The blistering threshold fluence for Y-cut LN is found to be between 1.0 x 1016 and 2.0 x 1016 cm-2, and the Arrhenius plot of the blistering time as a function of reciprocal temperature shows that the activation of blistering is 2.14 eV, 1.77 eV and 1.44 eV for samples under fluence of 2.0 x 1016, 3.0x 1016 and 4.0 x 1016 cm-2, respectively. Our experimental results unambiguously contribute to exploring the avenue of achieving high-quality layer, particularly highly anisotropic ones, by CIS techniques.