Tungsten samples were irradiated by neutrons in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), Oak Ridge National Laboratory at reactor coolant temperatures of 50–70 °C to low displacement damage of 0.025 and 0.3 dpa. After cooling down, the HFIR neutron-irradiated tungsten samples were exposed to deuterium plasmas in the Tritium Plasma Experiment, Idaho National Laboratory at 100, 200 and 500 °C twice at the ion fluence of 5 × 1025 m−2 to reach the total ion fluence of 1 × 1026 m−2 in order to investigate the near-surface deuterium retention and saturation via nuclear reaction analysis. Final thermal desorption spectroscopy was performed to elucidate the irradiation effect on total deuterium retention. Nuclear reaction analysis results showed that the maximum near-surface (<5 µm depth) deuterium concentration increased from 0.5 at% D/W in 0.025 dpa samples to 0.8 at% D/W in 0.3 dpa samples. The large discrepancy between the total retention via thermal desorption spectroscopy and the near-surface retention via nuclear reaction analysis indicated the deuterium was trapped in bulk (at least 50 µm depth for 0.025 dpa and 35 µm depth for 0.3 dpa) at 500 °C cases even in the relatively low ion fluence of 1026 m−2.
Stabilization of defects by the presence of hydrogen in tungsten: simultaneous W-ion damaging and D-atom exposure