Beta-active Microlayer Selective Deposition on the Tantalum Plate by Ion-Plasma Technology

In this paper we provide the experimental confirmation of the carbon atoms layer selective deposition on the tantalum plate by ion-plasma technology developed for irradiated reactor graphite deactivation. The considered variant of the ion-plasma deactivation technology is based on the large area of irradiated reactor graphite surface sputtering by high pressure “shortened” discharge in argon and selective deposition of the beta-active micro layer enriched with carbon-14 radionuclides on the tantalum plate. The selective separation of radioactive metal impurities and carbon-14 is carried out by differentiation with respect to sputtered atoms condensation temperature. Non-irradiated reactor grade graphite samples (GR-280) containing metal impurities on the surface due to industrial fabrication reasons were used in our experiment. Selective deposition of the carbon layer on the tantalum plate was confirmed by means of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with X-ray microanalysis. The beta-radiolayer enriched by carbon-14 is of interest for the fabrication of new materials like a beta-active “nano-micro-sandwich” that can be used for the manufacturing of new beta-voltaic batteries - vacuum-beta-cells (VBC) or for medical brachytherapy purposes.