Experimental determination of the deuterium binding energy with vacancies in tungsten

Deuterium (D) interaction with vacancies in tungsten (W) was studied using thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS). In order to obtain a TDS spectrum with a prominent peak corresponding to D release from vacancies, a special procedure comprising damaging of a recrystallized W sample by low fluences of 10 keV/D ions, its annealing, and subsequent low-energy ion implantation, was utilized. This experimental sequence was performed several times in series; the only difference was the TDS heating rate that varied in the range of 0.15-4 K/s. The sum of the D binding energy (Eb) with vacancies and the activation energy for D diffusion (ED) in W was then directly determined from the slope of the Arrhenius-like plot ln(β/Tm2) versus 1/Tm, where β - heating rate and Tm - position of the respective peak in the TDS spectrum. The determined value of Eb + ED was 1.56 ± 0.06 eV.