3He Behaviour in Li2TiO3 Ceramics for Fusion Breeding Blanket Applications

After Li-transmutation in fusion breeder blanket (BB) materials, T and 4He will diffuse reaching the breeder surface where will be desorbed. Considering the experimental difficulty of handling T, other light ions are chosen to simulate T behaviour. In the present work, 3He was implanted to a fluence of 2*1016 at/cm2 at -120 °C using a 600 keV 3He beam on sintered Li2TiO3 ceramics, one of the best candidates as BB solid materials. Temperature was increased up to 900 °C and the 3He release curve registered during heating. The 3He depth profiling is then obtained at -120 °C, after 1 h of annealing at 150 °C, and finally after 5 min at the maximum temperature (900 °C) using NR analysis. A previous work on D-depth thermal profiling reveals the importance of the matrix microstructural characteristics. Therefore both experiments are discussed comparatively.