Effect of high flux plasma exposure on the micro-structural and -mechanical properties of ITER specification tungsten

Andrii Dubinko, Dmitry Terentyev, Anastasiia Bakaeva, T. Pardoen, M. Zibrov, T.W. Morgan

    Research outputpeer-review

    Abstract

    We have performed a combined study using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), nuclear reaction analysis (NRA) and nano-indentation (NI) techniques to reveal the impact of high flux plasma exposure on the properties of a sub-surface region of the commercially available pure tungsten fabricated following the ITER specification. TEM examination revealed the formation of a dense dislocation network and dislocation tangles, resulting in a strong increase in the dislocation density by at least one order of magnitude as compared to the bulk density. The plasma-induced dislocation microstructure vanishes within a depth of about 10–15 lm from the top of the exposed surface. Surface hardness after the plasma exposure was characterized by NI and was found to increase significantly in the sub-surface region of 1.5– 3 lm. That was attributed to the resistance of the plasma-induced dislocation networks and deuterium-induced defects, whose presence within a depth of 1 lm was unambiguously detected by the NRA measurements as well.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)155-159
    Number of pages5
    JournalNuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms
    Volume393
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 15 Feb 2017

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