Profile measurements of helium implanted in UO2 sintered pellets by using the 3He(d, α)1H nuclear reaction analysis technique

Profiling of 3He implanted in sintered uranium dioxide pellets was performed using 3He(d, α)1H Nuclear Reaction Analysis technique. To accurate profile measurements, the cross-section of the 3He(d, p)4He nuclear reaction was carefully measured with a relative standard deviation of 5%. The total cross-section represented by a fit function is compared with data from literature. With the described coincidence arrangement, we obtained a reduction by a factor ≈4 × 104 of the signal of deuterons elastically scattered in uranium and a total suppression of parasite signals in the region of helium profiling. This technique enables us to measure helium profile in UO2 a couple of microns below the surface with a resolution of 0.1 μm and a detection limit of 0.01 at.%.