Retention and release of deuterium implanted in copper coatings on Al-6061

Abstract To mitigate the problem of retention and permeation of tritium implanted in Al-6061, the use of copper coatings was investigated. Copper coatings (having weights of 0.03, 0.06 and 0.088 kg/m 2 ) deposited on Al-6061 substrates by the RF Magnetron sputtering method were implanted with deuterium (D) in an accelerator at 350 K, and the resulting D profiles were monitored using negative SIMS and the D( 3 He,p) 4 He nuclear reaction. The retention characteristics of deuterium were subsequently studied as a function of coating weight, D + fluence (varied in the 1−3×10 21 D + / m 2 range) and D + ion energy (40 and 120 keV). Under identical implantation conditions, deuterium retention in Al-6061 was higher than in Al-6061 coated with 0.088 kg/m 2 Cu. In the various coatings implanted under different conditions, deuterium retention ranged between 1.2% and 5.4% of the implanted amount. The deuterium retention decreased with increasing coating weight and then leveled off with further increases in the coating weight. The retention increased linearly with implantation fluence.