Effect of helium implantation on mechanical properties of EUROFER97 evaluated by nanoindentation

Abstract

Helium effects on EUROFER97 mechanical properties were studied by means of nanoindentation. The steel was implanted with He ions in a stair-like profile configuration using energies from 2 to 15 MeV at room temperature. Firstly, a deep nanoindentation study was carried out on as-received state (normalized + tempered) in order to obtain a reliable properties database at the nanometric scale, including aspects such as indentation size effect. The nanoindentation hardness of tests on He implanted samples showed a hardness increase depending on the He concentration. The hardness increase follows the He implantation concentration profile with a good accuracy according to BCA calculations using MARLOWE code, considering the whole volume affected by the nanoindentation tests. The results obtained in this work shown that nanoindentation technique permits to assess any change of hardness properties due to ion implantation.