ION-BEAM ANALYSES OF CERAMICS AND GLASSES IN NUCLEAR-ENERGY

Ion beam techniques (Rutherford backscattering (RBS) with and without the channeling effect technique, resonance scattering on O-16 with high energy He-beams, elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA), SIMS and nuclear reactions such as H(N-15, alphagamma) C-12 for H detection, etc.) have been used extensively and successfully in the past years to investigate surfaces and surface-near layers of materials of importance for nuclear energy. These materials include the nuclear fuels UO2 and UN, the tailor-made borosilicate glasses and the special ceramics (e.g. SYNROC) for solidification and safe long-term storage of high level radioactive waste. In this latter area, ion beam techniques have significantly improved the understanding of the mechanisms and kinetics of corrosion in water. Ion beam techniques have also been applied to introduce foreign atoms and to modify the surfaces of these materials, and additional ion beam techniques were subsequently used to analyse the surface changes and modifications. This article presents a review of these largely unpublished activities and points out some of the important progress achieved recently, e.g. on the mechanism of polygonization of UO2.