Retention of deuterium in beryllium: A combined investigation using TDS, ERDA and EBS

We have studied the retention of deuterium in beryllium, implanted with an energy of 500 eV/D, using a combination of thermal desorption spectroscopy, elastic recoil detection analysis and elastic backscattering spectroscopy. The parallel use of these techniques allowed us to directly quantify the absolute deuterium content reduction of the sample for specific desorption peaks observed during thermal annealing. In addition, the presence of a beryllium oxide surface layer was observed, despite sputter-cleaning of the sample was initially conducted in-situ. A main result was that similar to 85 % of the retained deuterium got released during the primary desorption peak at 400 K. A smaller, secondary desorption peak was identified at 540 K. All deuterium could be removed from the Be sample by heating it to a temperature of 800 K.

Automated summary

In this study, the retention of deuterium in beryllium was investigated using various analytical techniques. The results showed that approximately 85% of the retained deuterium was released during the primary desorption peak at 400 K, and a smaller secondary desorption peak was observed at 540 K. Interestingly, a beryllium oxide surface layer was present despite in-situ sputter-cleaning of the sample. Heating the sample to a temperature of 800 K completely removed all deuterium.