Effect of 800Â keV argon ions pre-damage on the helium blister formation of tungsten exposed to 60Â keV helium ions

This study aims to investigate the effect of Ar8+ ions pre-damage on the following He2+ irradiation behavior of polycrystalline tungsten. We compared the irradiation resistance performance against 60 keV He2+ ions of undamaged tungsten samples with that of pre-damaged samples which were preliminarily exposed to 800 keV Ar8+ ions at a fluence of 4 × 1019 ions m−2. The experimental results indicate that the helium blistering of tungsten could be effectively relieved by the Ar8+ ions pre-damage, while the retention of helium around low energy desorption sites in the pre-damaged tungsten was larger than that of the undamaged samples. A strong orientation dependence of blistering had been observed, with the blister occurred preferentially on the surface of grains with normal direction close to <111>. The Ar8+ ions irradiation-induced damage altered the morphology of helium bubbles in tungsten exposed to the following He2+ irradiation significantly. The intensity of helium release peaks at relatively low temperatures (<600 K) was enhanced due to Ar8+ ions pre-damage.