IN-SITU MEV ION-BEAM ANALYSIS OF CERAMIC SURFACES MODIFIED BY 100-400KEV ION IRRADIATION

This paper describes the use of an in situ ion beam analysis facility developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory for the study of irradiati on effects in ceramic materials. In this facility, an analytical beaml ine of 3 MV tandem accelerator and an irradiation beamline of 200 kV i on implanter are connected at 60 degrees to a common target chamber, T his facility provides a fast, efficient, and quantitative measurement tool to monitor changes of composition and crystallinity of materials irradiated by 100-400 keV ions through sequential measurement of backs cattering events of MeV ions combined with ion channeling techniques. We will describe the details of the in situ ion beam analysis and ion irradiation and discuss some of the important issues and their solutio ns associated with the in situ experiment, These issues include (1) th e selection of an axial ion channeling direction for the measurement o f radiation damage; (2) sample surface charging and charge collection for data acquisition; (3) surface sputtering during ion irradiation; ( 4) the effects of MeV analytical beam on the materials; and (5) the sa mple heating effect on ion beam analysis.