Atom probe characterization of nano-scaled features in irradiated ODS Eurofer steel

Our previous investigations of unirradiated ODS Eurofer by tomographic atom probe (TAP) revealed numerous nano-scaled features (nanoclusters) enriched in vanadium, yttrium and oxygen. In this work the effect of neutron irradiation on nanostructure behaviour of ODS Eurofer (9%-CrWVTa) was investigated. The irradiation was performed in the research reactor BOR-60 (Dimitrovgrad, Russia) where materials were irradiated at 330 °С to 32 dpa. TAP studies were performed on the needles prepared from parts of broken Charpy specimens. For all specimens except one, which was tested at 500 °C, the Charpy tests were performed at temperatures not exceeding the irradiation temperature. A high number density 2–4 × 1024 m−3 of ultra fine 1–3 nm diameter nanoclusters enriched in yttrium, oxygen, manganese and chromium was observed in the irradiated state. The composition of detected clusters differs from that for unirradiated ODS Eurofer. It was observed in this work that after neutron irradiation vanadium atoms had left the clusters, moving from the core into solid solution. The concentrations of yttrium and oxygen in the matrix, as it was detected, increase several times under irradiation. In the samples tested at 500 °C both the number density of clusters and the yttrium concentration in the matrix decrease by a factor of two.