Detection of hydrogen isotopes in Zircaloy-4 via femtosecond LIBS

The analysis of hydrogen isotopes ( 1 H, 2 H, and 3 H) is crucial to several applications, including nuclear forensics and safeguards, characterization of nuclear fission and fusion reactor materials, geochemistry, and space exploration. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a promising too...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of analytical atomic spectrometry 2021-06, Vol.36 (6), p.1217-1227
Main Authors: Kautz, Elizabeth J., Rönnebro, Ewa C. E., Devaraj, Arun, Senor, David J., Harilal, Sivanandan S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Gas pressure
Geochemistry
Hydrogen isotopes
Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy
Laser plasmas
Lasers
Line broadening
Line spectra
Nuclear fission
Nuclear fusion
Optical emission spectroscopy
Pressure
Reactor materials
Space exploration
Spatial distribution
Spectrum analysis
Stress concentration
Zircaloys (trademark)
Zirconium
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The analysis of hydrogen isotopes ( 1 H, 2 H, and 3 H) is crucial to several applications, including nuclear forensics and safeguards, characterization of nuclear fission and fusion reactor materials, geochemistry, and space exploration. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a promising tool for the real-time analysis of hydrogen isotopes. However, the accurate, quantitative analysis via LIBS can be challenging due to 1 H contamination on sample surfaces, residual 1 H in the analysis environment, minor amounts of solute 1 H, and spectral line broadening. Here, we characterize femtosecond laser induced plasmas from Zircaloy-4 targets with varying 1 H and 2 H concentrations in a He gas environment via spatially and temporally resolved optical emission spectroscopy. The impact of varying ambient gas pressure, the spatial distribution, and temporal histories of species viz. , 1 H α , 2 H α , and Zr I on Zircaloy-4 plasma spectral features are reported. 1 H α and Zr I emission features are found to have different ambient pressure dependencies and are separated in both space and time in the laser induced plasmas. Lastly, the measured 2 H α emission intensities via femtosecond LIBS for a wide range of 2 H concentrations in Zircaloy-4 samples showed a linear trend when plotted versus known 2 H concentration.
ISSN:0267-9477
1364-5544
DOI:10.1039/D1JA00034A