Berlin 2024 – scientific programme

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MM: Fachverband Metall- und Materialphysik

MM 16: Poster Ia

MM 16.17: Poster

Monday, March 18, 2024, 18:30–20:30, Poster E

Measurement of Tritium Content with a novel Detector System — •Joris Müller, Christoph Kirchlechner, and Xufei Fang — IAM, KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany

Hydrogen Embrittlement (HE) and the involved mechanisms are still being heatedly debated today. It yet remains a challenge to quantify the embrittlement due to the difficulty in precisely detecting hydrogen via most existing methods, while ones with high precision (e.g., Atom Probe Tomography) are limited to very local areas under special conditions (e.g., deuterium charging). Here, we present a concept of using a high-resolution, spatially-resolving direct electron detector, akin to a radiation camera, by taking advantage of using the radioactive hydrogen isotope tritium. After exposing samples to tritium, the β-decay can then be detected to enable a positionally accurate depiction of its position in the crystal lattice. One proposed concept makes use of a parallel-hole collimator for direction-wise filtering in order to achieve a parallel projection image in combination with a stacked microchannel plate (MCP) array for amplification, followed by a phosphorescent screen and high-resolution camera functioning as an electron to photon and finally signal converter. A setup like this will, in an ideal case, enable in situ real-time tracking of tritium during micromechanical tests, allow quantification of the mechanical properties with the presence of hydrogen in the materials' defects (e.g., grain boundaries), and help to gain a better understanding of the hydrogen embrittlement mechanisms in metals.

Keywords: Hydrogen Embrittlement; Tritium; Direct Electron Detector