He behavior in Ni and Ni-based equiatomic solid solution alloy

Abstract In the current work, pure nickel (99.99 wt.%) and Ni-containing single phase equiatomic solid solution alloy Fe-Co-Cr-Ni were irradiated with 190 keV He ions at room temperature with different fluences and He behavior in both materials are compared. At 1 × 1017 cm−2, TEM observation reveals that only isolated and small He bubbles (1–2 nm) are formed in Fe-Co-Cr-Ni alloy while many small suspected “string”-like He bubbles are observed in nickel at the concentration peak region (5.5 at.%). When the fluence is increased to 5 × 1017 cm−2, average bubble size in nickel increases to ∼8 nm which is almost equal to that in Fe-Co-Cr-Ni, but a higher bubble density is observed in nickel. At the highest dose of 1 × 1018 cm−2, numerous surface blisters and exfoliations occur in nickel which are consistent with TEM observation, while the Fe-Co-Cr-Ni alloy only shows a slight surface blister. Bubble coarsening upon annealing at 500 °C (2 h) is observed at 5 × 1017 cm−2 in both alloys, but a significant larger bubble growth is observed in nickel, suggesting a relatively better resistance to He bubble growth for Fe-Co-Cr-Ni alloy.