Determination of the helium thermal diffusion coefficient in britholite using a NRA method: new results

Abstract Dimensioning of actinides waste packages for long duration storage has to take into account helium production from natural decay and release rates from the material. For the latter, we propose here an improved method for the determination of the helium diffusion coefficient in britholite, to be used for minor actinides storage. This work is based on results we previously published using the classical three steps method: 3 He implantation on a Van de Graaff facility, 3 He profile determination analysing the protons resulting from the 3 He(d, p ) 4 He reaction in a nuclear microprobe, evolution of the helium profile during annealings. Taking explicitly into account the incident deuterons energy stragglings allows us to show that the implanted helium profiles are bimodal, each component leading to a different helium diffusion coefficient.