In situ MeV ion beam analysis of ceramic surfaces modified by 100-400 keV ion irradiation

Abstract This paper describes the use of an in situ ion beam analysis facility developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory for the study of irradiation effects in ceramic materials. In this facility, an analytical beamline of 3 MV tandem accelerator and an irradiation beamline of 200 kV ion implanter are connected at 60° to a common target chamber. This facility provides a fast, efficient, and quantitative measurement tool to monitor changes of composition and crystallinity of materials irradiated by 100–400 keV ions through sequential measurement of backscattering events of MeV ions combined with ion channeling techniques. We will describe the details of the in situ ion beam analysis and ion irradiation and discuss some of the important issues and their solutions associated with the in situ experiment. These issues include (1) the selection of an axial ion channeling direction for the measurement of radiation damage; (2) sample surface charging and charge collection for data acquisition; (3) surface sputtering during ion irradiation; (4) the effects of MeV analytical beam on the materials; and (5) the sample heating effect on ion beam analysis.