A transmission electron microscopy study of inert gases in silicon and iron

This thesis presents a study of inert gas inclusion in iron and silicon, as a result of ionimplantation. The effect of ion implantation conditions on the formation anddevelopment of inert gas bubbles within these solids has been explored, and the mobilityof these nanoscale bubbles during heating has been investigated, linking to work onempirical equations of state. Also reported on, is the observation of a neon bubblesuperlattice in iron, and some preliminary work investigating the retention of helium iniron, from a high temperature, high pressure diamond anvil cell.For this work, iron samples have been prepared for transmission electronmicroscopy (TEM) via a focused ion beam system (FIB), while silicon tri-layer samples(monocrystalline silicon — silicon oxide — polycrystalline silicon) were produced bypreparing cross-sectional slices of the bulk material by mechanical polishing and ionbeamthinning. These samples were subsequently implanted with helium and neon (alsoargon in the case of silicon) at the in-situ TEM/ion accelerator MIAMI facility, which isnow at the University of Huddersfield. This enabled real-time observation of bubbledevelopment, from which micrographs and video have been recorded