Evolution and change of He bubbles in He-containing Ti films upon thermal treatment studied by small-angle X-ray scattering and transmission electron microscopy

• Change of He bubbles in thermally treated Ti–He films is studied by SAXS and TEM.
• SAXS reveals size distribution and fractional population of He bubbles in films.
• He-vacancy clusters in Ti–He film transfer to bubbles and release upon annealing.
• Migration and coalescence are responsible for growth of bubbles at low temperature.
• Formation of large bubbles under OR mechanism dominates at high temperature.

Evolution and change of He bubbles in magnetron sputtering prepared He-containing Ti films under thermal treatment are studied by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction. Incorporation of He introduces a large number of He-vacancy clusters and some voids in the films, and significantly increases SAXS intensity and causes anisotropic scattering. The change of He induced defects during annealing is affected by thermal diffusion and migration of trapped He to the surface and between interfaces of He induced defects within the films. Annealing at 200 and 400 °C reduces intensity and anisotropy of SAXS, in accord with observed shrinking and disappearance of the voids. The simultaneous growth of non-uniformly distributed He bubbles to the sizes of 1–2 nm and a population level of 105/μm3 are detected in the temperature range. The changes are explained by migration and coalescence mechanisms, which requires low apparent activation energy. Inconsistence between TEM and SAXS observations is noted and attributed to thinning induced internal stress relaxation of TEM specimen. Remarkable enlargement of He bubbles, associated with increased SAXS intensity and fractal dimension, is observed after 600 °C annealing, indicating involvement of Ostwald Ripening (OR) mechanism. The OR process dominates at 800 °C, where the high temperature provides activation energy for accelerated He dissociation from small bubbles into larger ones, and generating textured microstructure and agglomerated bubble clusters. The inhomogeneous bubble size distribution observed at this temperature covers a broad range of about 10–50 nm and possessing a population density level of 103/μm3.