High-Temperature Annealing Induced He Bubble Evolution in Low Energy He Ion Implanted 6H-SiC

Bubble evolution in low energy and high dose He-implanted 6H-SiC upon thermal annealing is studied. The （0001）-oriented 6H-SiC wafers are implanted with 15keV helium ions at a dose of 1×10^17 cm^-2 at room temperature. The samples with post-implantation are annealed at temperatures of 1073, 1173, 1273, and 1473K for 30rain. He bubbles in the wafers are examined via cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy （XTEM） analysis. The results present that nanoscale bubbles are almost homogeneously distributed in the damaged layer of the as-implanted sample, and no significant change is observed in the He-implanted sample after 1073 K annealing. Upon 1193 K annealing, almost full recrystallization of He-implantation-induced amorphization in 6H-SiC is observed. In addition, the diameters of He bubbles increase obviously. With continually increasing temperatures to 1273K and 1473 K, the diameters of He bubbles increase and the number density of lattice defects decreases. The growth of He bubbles after high temperature annealingabides by the Ostwald ripening mechanism. The mean diameter of He bubbles located at depths of 120-135 nm as a function of annealing temperature is fitted in terms of a thermal activated process which yields an activation energy of 1.914＋0.236eV.

Helium bubble formation and evolution in NiMo-Y_(2)O_(3)alloy under He ion irradiation

We report helium ion irradiation experiments for a new type of dispersion-strengthened NiMo-Y_(2)O_(3)alloy with three different irradiation doses and varying irradiation dose rates at 750℃to evaluate its helium-induced damage behavior.Transmission electron microscopy was used to reveal the evolution of helium bubbles after irradiation.The experimental results show that with increasing ion dose,the number density of helium bubbles increases continuously.However,the mean size of helium bubbles first increases and then decreases,mainly due to the varied ion dose rates.The volume fractions of helium bubbles in the three investigated samples after irradiation are 0.15%,0.32%,and 0.27%,which are lower than that of the Hastelloy N alloy(0.58%)after similar irradiation conditions.This indicates that the NiMo-Y_(2)O_(3)alloy exhibits better helium-induced-swelling resistance than the Hastelloy N alloy,highlighting its potential applicability to MSRs,from the perspective of irradiation performance.

Kinetic study of electrochemically produced hydrogen bubbles on Pt electrodes with tailored geometries

Understanding bubbles evolution kinetics on electrodes with varied geometries is of fundamental importance for advanced electrodes design in gas evolution reaction.In this work,the evolution kinetics of electro-generated hydrogen bubbles are recorded in situ on three(i.e.smooth,nanoporous,and nanoarray)Pt electrodes to identify the geometry dependence.The bubble radius shows a time-dependent growth kinetic,which is tightly-connected to the electrode geometry.Among the three electrodes,the smooth one shows a typical time coefficient of 0.5,in consistence with reported values;the nanoporous one shows a time coefficient of 0.47,less than the classic one(0.5);while the nanoarray one exhibits fastest bubble growth kinetics with a time coefficient higher than 0.5(0.54).Moreover,the nanoarray electrode has the smallest bubble detachment size and the largest growth coefficient(23.3)of all three electrodes.Based on the experimental results,a growth model combined direct bottom-injection with micro-convection is proposed to illustrate the surface geometry dependent coefficients,i.e.,the relationship between geometry and bubble evolution kinetics.The direct injection of generated gas molecules from the bottom of bubbles at the three phase boundaries are believed the key to tailor the bubble wetting states and thus determine the bubble evolution kinetics.