Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry is an important technique for the study of the composition of a wide range of materials because of the exceptionally high sensitivity that allows the study of trace elements and the ability to distinguish isotopes that can be used as markers for reactions and transport processes. However, when studying nuclear materials, it is often necessary to analyse highly radioactive samples, and only rather few SIMS facilities are available in active environments. In this paper, we present a methodology using focussed ion beam milling to prepare samples from radioactive specimens that are sufficiently large to undertake SIMS mapping experiments over microstructurally-significant regions, but with overall activities small enough to be readily transported and analysed by a SIMS instrument in a normal laboratory environment. Radioactive samples prepared using this methodology can also be used for correlative SIMS analysis with other analytical microscopies. SIMS results showing the distributions of deuterium in oxides on in-reactor corroded zirconium alloys are presented to demonstrate the potential of this sample preparation technique. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

中文翻译：

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用于放射性样品 SIMS 分析的现场特定样品制备

二次离子质谱法是研究各种材料组成的重要技术，因为它具有极高的灵敏度，可以研究痕量元素，并且能够区分可用作反应和传输过程标记的同位素. 然而，在研究核材料时，通常需要分析高放射性样品，并且在活跃环境中可用的 SIMS 设施很少。在本文中，我们提出了一种使用聚焦离子束铣削从放射性样品制备样品的方法，这些样品足够大以在显微结构重要区域进行 SIMS 映射实验，但总体活动小到足以通过 SIMS 仪器进行传输和分析在正常的实验室环境中。使用这种方法制备的放射性样品也可用于与其他分析显微镜相关的 SIMS 分析。SIMS 结果显示了反应器内腐蚀的锆合金氧化物中氘的分布，以证明这种样品制备技术的潜力。本文受版权保护。版权所有。