Implementation of heavy-ion elastic recoil detection analysis at JANNUS-Saclay for quantitative helium depth profiling

Quantitative depth profiling measurements of implanted light elements is an important issue for electronics and nuclear applications. Conventional elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA) has been improved by using heavy ions as incident particles for quantitatively profiling helium in materials. A new system has been implemented on the triple beam irradiation platform JANNUS at Saclay devoted to carry out HI-ERDA measurements. This device is dedicated to helium depth profiling using a 15MeV 16O5+ incident ion beam. Capabilities of the technique (quantitative analysis, resolution and limit of detection) were tested on samples of known composition. For the first time, 4He depth profiles in pure α-iron, as-implanted and annealed, are obtained. HI-ERDA measurements have shown that helium release in pure α-iron can be described by a succession of two steps, the first having a slow kinetics below 700°C and the second with a fast kinetics above 700°C.