Uranium dioxide films with xenon filled bubbles for fission gas behavior studies

Abstract Electron beam evaporation and ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) methods were utilized to fabricate depleted UO 2 films and UO 2 films with embedded Xe atoms, respectively. The films were fabricated at elevated temperature of 700 °C and also subsequently annealed at 1000 °C to induce grain growth and Xe atom redistribution. The goal of this work was to synthesize reference UO 2 samples with controlled microstructures and Xe-filled bubble morphologies, without the effects attendant to rector irradiation-induced fission. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) microstructural characterization revealed that fine Xe-filled bubbles nucleated in the as grown films and subsequent annealing resulted in noticeable bubble size increase. Reported results demonstrate the great potential IBAD techniques and UO 2 films have for various areas of nuclear materials studies.