PNNL

Abstract

Formation of nanoscale helium (He) bubbles in reduced activation ferritic/martensitic steels may lead to degradation of mechanical properties of materials. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been commonly used to image the Fresnel contrast of He bubbles using a defocus of 0.5 µm ~ 1 µm. This paper presents our study of multislice simulation of the size correlation between imaged Fresnel rings and the actual He bubbles. It was found that for bubbles equal to or larger than 3 nm in diameter, the imaged bubble size, represented by its inner diameter of the first dark Fresnel ring (Din) in under-focused imaging conditions, increases with increasing electron-beam incoherency, but decreases with increasing defocus. The electron-beam accelerating voltage, bubble size, bubble position, and TEM sample thickness were found to have no significant influence on the deviation of Din from the actual bubble size (D0). For bubbles equal to or smaller than 2 nm, however, Din/Do increases dramatically with increasing defocus when it is above a threshold defocus. It was also suggested by this study that He bubbles can be differentiated from argon (Ar) bubbles by contrast differences.