Developing a Comprehensive In-Situ Irradiation Testing Facility at Tennessee Ion Beam Materials Laboratory

Validating and refining simulation of reactor materials evolution for either next generation fission or fusion energy systems, as well as models to extend the lifetime of current reactor fleet would benefit from controlled experiments in coupled extreme environments. This presentation will highlight the expansion of Tennessee Ion Beam Materials Laboratory (TIBML) from a world-class Ion Beam Analysis (IBA) facility based on a 3 MV Tandem Accelerator to a diverse facility designed to understand materials and device evolution in coupled extreme environments. To expand the irradiation environment, the facility will be adding a 300 keV NEC implanter, 20 kV and 5 kV Nonsequitur ion sources, a 30 kV Kimball Physics electron gun, and a Nd:YAG laser from Quantum-Ray with output energies up to 1 J at 1064 nm. The facility is already capable of performing ion irradiation and implantation experiments at temperatures ranging from 30 to 1473 K. In addition, the TIBML facility is developing capabilities to perform in-situ irradiation during photoluminescence, cathodoluminescence, ion beam induced luminescence, Raman, acoustic emission, IBA, nanomechanical testing, and Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM). The latter will be done utilizing a higlhy modified JEOL 2100+ that was installed in October of 2023. The high tilt polepiece, additional electron beam condenser lens, and LaB₆ filament were selected to optimize the characterization of radiation damage. In addition, the STEM was coupled with Nanomegas Automated Crystallographic Orientation Mapping (ACOM) and Theia scientific edge computing systems for machine learning to characterize the impact of radiation damage on phase, orientation, and grain boundary evolution, as well as the size distribution of internal matrix radiation damage, respectively. This presentation will highlight the current status of the TIBML facility development and the initial results of the coupled environment. Finally, this presentation will discuss the potential future opportunities to explore increasingly complex coupled environments in a controlled manner.