Quantifying residual stress in Helium-implanted surfaces and its implication for blistering

Helium implantation in surfaces is of interest for plasma-facing materials and other nuclear applications. Vanadium as both a representative bcc material and a material relevant for fusion applications is implanted using a Helium ion beam microscope, and the resulting swelling and nanomechanical properties are quantified. These values are put in correlation to data obtained from micro-residual stress measurements using a focused ion beam-based ring-core technique. We found that the swelling measured is similar to literature values. Further, we are able to measure the surface stress caused by the implantation and find that it approaches the yield strength of the material at blistering doses. The simple calculations performed in the present work, along with several geometrical considerations deduced from experimental results confirm the driving force for blister formation comes from bulging resulting mainly from gas pressure buildup, rather than solely stress-induced buckling. Graphic abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]