Tritium Depth Profiling in Carbon by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry

Tritium depth profiling measurements by accelerator mass spectrometry have been performed at the facility installed at the Rossendorf 3 MV Tandetron. In order to achieve a uniform erosion at the target surface inside of a commercial Cs ion sputtering source and to avoid edge effects, the samples were mechanically scanned and the signals were recorded only during sputtering at the centre of the sputtered area. The sputtered negative ions were mass analysed by the injection magnet of the Tandetron. Hydrogen and deuterium profiles are measured with the Faraday cup between the injection magnet and the accelerator, while the tritium is counted after the accelerator with semiconductor detectors. Depth profiles have been measured for carbon samples which had been exposed to the plasma at the first wall of the Garching fusion experiment ASDEX-Upgrade and from the European fusion experiment JET, Culham/UK. The tritium contents of the samples from JET were one up to five orders higher compared to the samples from ASDEX-Upgrade. The problem of the detector overloading during measurements of samples with a high tritium content has been solved by installation of a scanning system in the AMS beamline, which enables defined scanning of the tritium beam over an aperture in front of the detector.