Surface morphology and deuterium retention in W and W-HfC alloy exposed to high flux D plasma irradiation

In this work, pure W and W-0.5wt%HfC alloy (WHC05) were fabricated by sintering and hot-rolling following the same processing route. After exposing to a high flux deuterium plasma irradiation with the D+ flux to three fluences of 6.00 x 1024, 2.70 x 1025 and 7.02 x 1025 D/m2, the evolution of surface morphology, deuterium retention and hardening behaviors in pure W and WHC05 has been studied. The SEM results show the formation of D blisters on the irradiated area, and with the increase of D im-plantation, the size of these blisters increases from 200 -500 nm (2.70 x 1025 D/m2) to 1 -2 mm (7.02 x 1025 D/m2) in WHC05 and from 1 -2 mm (2.70 x 1025 D/m2) to > 3 mm (7.02 x 1025 D/m2) in pure W, respectively. A higher D retention and obvious hardening are observed in pure W than that of the WHC05 alloy, indicating an improve radiation resistance in WHC05 compared to pure W.(c) 2022 Korean Nuclear Society, Published by Elsevier Korea LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).