Measurement of Tritium Distribution in Nickel and Vanadium by Means of A Combined Technique of An Imaging Plate and Thin Absorbers

A combined technique of an imaging plate (IP) and thin absorbers was applied to tritium in nickel and vanadium specimens using copper, aluminum, and gold foil as the absorber. Copper and aluminum foil are used as a K-edge filter with X-ray absorption at 9.0 keV and 1.56 keV, respectively. Gold has L-edges X-ray absorption at around 13 keV. With this technique, photostimulated luminescence (PSL) decay curves are obtained by changing absorber’s thickness. In the nickel specimen, the difference in PSL decay curves between for the copper and gold absorber was clearly observed 20 days after loading, however, all curves became similar single pattern after 388 days. The same curve pattern was obtained in vanadium for all absorbers. The cross section images and depth profiles, which were taken at 468 days and 3.9 years after loading for the nickel and vanadium specimen, respectively, show no significant inclination of tritium concentration for both specimens. These results indicate that uniform tritium distribution in the specimen provides the similar single PSL decay curves pattern for the copper or aluminum and gold absorber.