The effects of surface contamination on absorption and desorption of deuterium in beryllium and beryllium oxide

Deuterium thermal absorption and desorption experiments were conducted in high-purity Be, BeO and Be2C samples. Ion-beam analysis was used to measure the surface contamination and near-surface deuterium concentration (up to depths of 500 nm). For bulk BeO the deuterium solubility is small, with S ≈ 1018exp(−0.8 eV/kT) at/m3(Pa)12, possibly indicative of the formation of hydroxide bonds; the diffusivity is ≥ 7 × 10−5 exp(−2.1 eV/kT) m2/s. In …