Intermediate Voltage Electron Microscope-Tandem Facility

The Intermediate Voltage Electron Microscope-Tandem Facility, or IVEM, is a U.S. Department of Energy user facility located at Argonne National Laboratory. Part microscope and part ion accelerator, IVEM enables scientists to study how nuclear fuels and materials withstand damage from radiation similar to the extreme conditions within a nuclear reactor.

IVEM is a dual-ion-beam facility for in situ transmission electron microscopy studies of defect structures in materials under controlled ion irradiation or implantation and sample conditions. The ion accelerator irradiates, or implants, materials with ions, and the microscope shows how those materials change at the atomic level. By combining these two features, scientists can study how nuclear fuels and materials withstand damage from radiation similar to the extreme conditions within a nuclear reactor.

The IVEM allows researchers to study the dynamics of nanoscale defects. These defects control much of the physical and mechanical behavior of nuclear fuels and materials. Scientists use the results from the IVEM to develop new materials that can tolerate extreme environments. They also can create models that can predict how long materials will continue to reliably perform inside nuclear reactors.

The IVEM’s advantages include:

• Real-time observation of defect formation and evolution during irradiation.
• Well-controlled experimental conditions (constant specimen orientation and area, specimen temperature, ion type, ion energy, dose rate, dose, and applied strain).
• Refined and validated computer model simulations of irradiation defect states.
• The ability to produce high-dose ion damage in hours, rather than the years such damage production would require in a nuclear reactor, supporting studies of material response to high doses of particle irradiation.
• No production of radioactivity in samples.

The IVEM-Tandem Facility is a partner facility of the Nuclear Science User Facilities supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy.

References

This article "Intermediate Voltage Electron Microscope-Tandem Facility" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Intermediate Voltage Electron Microscope-Tandem Facility. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

---