Nanoindentation on an oxide dispersion strengthened steel and a ferritic/martensitic steel implanted with He ions

ODS steel MA956 and F/M steel T92 were implanted with 30 keV He ions to fluences of 3.0 × 1014 (0.013 at.%/0.0046 dpa), 3.0 × 1015 (0.13 at.%/0.046 dpa), 3.0 × 1016 (1.3 at.%/0.46 dpa) and 1.0 × 1017 ions/cm2 (4.5 at.%/1.5 dpa) at room temperature. Nanoindentation and TEM were used to investigate the nanohardness and microstructure change induced by He ion implantation. TEM results showed that He bubbles and a damage zone (∼250 nm) were observed in both materials at He concentration of 0.13 at.%, small cracks or connected bubbles in surface near region formed at He concentration of 4.5 at.%. Nanoindentation results showed that evident hardness increase was observed at the depth of 38 nm. The hardness peak at 38 nm shifted to 58 nm at He concentration of 4.5 at.%, which could be associated with the formation of small cracks or connected bubbles in surface near region. The damage layer was thin and close to surface, a method, proposed by Hosemann basing on the “rule of mixtures” model, was used to estimate the hardening effects from defects and He in this layer. The estimated results showed that the hardness increased rapidly with damage at low damage level, and started to increase slowly and presented a saturation trend at the damage level higher than ∼0.2 dpa. From the hardening fraction, significant hardening occurred for T92 compared with that for MA956, which indicated that ODS steel MA956 was better than F/M steel T92 in hardening resistance induced by He at room temperature.