Speaker
Description
Ion accelerators are commonly used to simulate the effects of radiation damage in nuclear materials and when coupled to a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) one can follow the dynamics of radiation damage, precipitation, formation of gas bubbles, etc at a microscopic scale in almost real-time. Therefore, in principle, one can develop a detailed picture of radiation damage buildup in a single experiment. This is a significant advantage over more traditional ex-situ ion accelerator setups where several bulk samples need irradiating followed by their systematic post-irradiation characterisation. Nevertheless, TEM with in-situ ion irradiation requires samples that are only tens to hundreds of nanometres thick and although the effects of electron beam damage can be reduced, they are unavoidable. One must thus be aware of the effects of high surface-to-volume ratio and electron beam effect. There are several examples where ex-situ and TEM with in-situ ion irradiation can show different effects which may be offset in either temperature or radiation damage level from one another.
This presentation will give an overview of the technical aspects of the TEM with in-situ ion irradiation technique and how it differs from more traditional ex-situ irradiation setups in terms of the dosimetry, ion beam homogeneity, surface effects etc. Several examples that highlight the excellent potential and flexibility of this approach and situations where TEM-specific effects can dominate and bias the results will be presented.
