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

Electron beam evaporation and ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) methods were utilized to fabricate depleted UO2 films and UO2 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 UO2 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 UO2 films have for various areas of nuclear materials studies.