Surface-morphology changes and damage in hot tungsten by impact of 80 eV-12 keV He-ions and keV-energy self-atoms

FW Meyer and PS Krstic and H Hijazi and ME Bannister and J Dadras and CM Parish and HM Meyer, XXVIII INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PHOTONIC, ELECTRONIC AND ATOMIC COLLISIONS (ICPEAC), 488, 012036 (2014).

DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/488/1/012036

We report results of measurements on the evolution of the surface morphology of a hot tungsten surface due to impacting low-energy (80 12,000 eV) He ions, performed at the ORNL Multicharged Ion Research Facility (MIRF). Surface-morphology changes were investigated over a broad range of fluences, energies and temperatures for both virgin and pre-damaged W-targets. At low fluences, ordered coral-like and ridge- like surface structures are observed, with great grain-to-grain variability. At the largest fluences, individual grain characteristics disappear in FIB/SEM scans, and the entire surface is covered by a multitude of near-surface bubbles with a broad range of sizes, and disordered whisker growth, while in topdown SEM imaging the surface is virtually indistinguishable from the nanofuzz produced on linear plasma devices. These features are evident at progressively lower fluences as the He-ion energy is increased. In addition, simulations were carried out of damage caused by cumulative bombardment of 1 keV W self-atoms, using LAMMPS at the Kraken supercomputing facility of the University of Tennessee. The simulations show strong defect-recombination effects that lead to a saturation of the total defect number after a few hundred impacts, while sputtering and implantation lead to an imbalance of the vacancy and interstitial numbers.

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