Thermal desorption and bombardment-induced release of deuterium implanted into stainless steels at low energy

Thermal desorption spectra have been obtained for low energy (15–750 eV) deuterons implanted into types 321 and 304 stainless steel, to total fluences in the range 1013–1017 deuterons/cm2. In each case the spectra show a peak at about 350 K, but in the 321 steel there is a second peak in the region of 900 K, the population and peak temperature of which increase with energy. Activation energies of 0.99 and 2.39 eV and a rate constant of 7 × 1015/s have been derived for the peaks, and it is thought that the first peak corresponds to release from sites close to the surface, while the second peak may be related to trapping at impurities such as Ti.

Measurements have also been made of the release of deuterium resulting from post-implantation bombardment with hydrogen ions. It is found that depletion of the first peak in the 321 steel is the result of gas sputtering, but depletion of the second peak is the result of the formation of HD during desorption, while depletion of the peak in the 304 stainless steel also results from HD formation even though this peak is the same as the first peak in the 321 steel. Estimates have also been made of the deuterium self-sputtering cross section at various energies, which show a monotonie decrease as energy increases.