Ball Cratering Method for Auger Analysis of Oxide Layers on 20-25-Nb CAGR Cladding

摘要

A ball cratering method has been developed for the Auger analysis of oxide layers on 20-25-Nb CAGR cladding to overcome the inadequacies of ion etching for producing composition-depth profiles. Besides enabling much faster analysis, the ball cratering method reveals irregularity in the oxide layer structure, eliminates the interface smearing caused by ion etching and enables a determination of the oxide thickness to be made. The method may be extended to the analysis of other specimens, three fundamental geometries (flat, cylindrical and spherical) being considered. (ERA citation 13:001497)