Irradiation hardening of ODS ferritic steels under helium implantation and heavy-ion irradiation

Irradiation hardening of ODS ferritic steels after multi-energy He-ion implantation, or after irradiation with energetic heavy ions including Xe and Bi-ions was investigated with nano-indentation technique. Three kinds of high-Cr ODS ferritic steels including the commercial MA956 (19Cr–3.5Al), the 16Cr–0.1Ti and the 16Cr–3.5Al–0.1Zr were used. Data of nano-hardness were analyzed with an approach based on Nix-Gao model. The depth profiles of nano-hardness can be understood by the indentation size effect (ISE) in specimens of MA956 implanted with multi-energy He-ions or irradiated with 328 MeV Xe ions, which produced a plateau damage profile in the near-surface region. However, the damage gradient overlaps the ISE in the specimens irradiated with 9.45 Bi ions . The dose dependence of the nano-hardness shows a rapid increase at low doses and a slowdown at higher doses. An 1/2-power law dependence on dpa level is obtained. The discrepancy in nano-hardness between the helium implantation and Xe-ion irradiation can be understood by using the average damage level instead of the peak dpa level. Helium-implantation to a high dose (7400 appm/0.5 dpa) causes an additional hardening, which is possibly attributed to the impediment of motion dislocations by helium bubbles formed in high concentration in specimens.