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Latest News
Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Baojun Liu, Nazir P. Kherani, Stefan Zukotynski, Armando B. Antoniazzi, Kevin P. Chen
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 54 | Number 2 | August 2008 | Pages 627-630
Technical Paper | Process Applications | doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1893
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We report on a simple and versatile method for the integration of tritium in semiconductor materials. A variety of semiconductor materials are exposed to tritium (T2) gas at pressures of up to 120 bar and temperatures of up to 250 °C. Tritiated materials include hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H), crystalline silicon (c-Si), silica and carbon nanotubes (CNT). Deep ultra-violet laser irradiation was used to lock tritium in silica films. Effusion measurements show the presence of stable tritium in silicon, silica and CNTs up to 400 °C. IR absorption spectra show a Si-T stretching mode at 1200 cm-1 indicating the formation of stable Si-T bonds in a-Si:H. SIMS measurements show that the penetration depth of tritium in a-Si:H and c-Si is 150 and 10 nm, respectively; the concentration of tritium locked in a-Si:H and c-Si is 20 and 4 at.%, respectively. In tritiated silica, 248-nm UV laser irradiation locks the permeated tritium at stable chemical bonding sites in the silica lattice. Thermal effusion measurement shows that 0.5 wt.% tritium can be stably immobilized in CNTs. The application of tritiated silicon as a cold electron source is demonstrated.