The hydrogenation and dehydrogenation behaviors of a zirconium alloy were in-situ studied by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The zirconium alloy can absorb hydrogen to form Zr hydride which is enhanced by the relaxation of inner stress in the alloy. The hydrogen is generated from an ion/electron beam stimulated decomposition of an organometallic precursor, trimethyl (methylcyclopentadienyl) platinum (IV), in a scanning electron microscope and focused ion beam system. The formed δ-type zirconium hydride that has a face centered cubic structure was observed to grow as preferentially oriented platelets in the zirconium alloy matrix. The platelets have a common crystallographic relationship of [010] α //[1-10] δ , (001) α //(111) δ. The dehydrogenation of the zirconium hydride was in-situ investigated in a transmission electron microscope by heating the materials. It was found that the δ-ZrH 1.5-1.66 hydride transformed into ζ-ZrH 0.25 at 450 C even at a longer heating time. The experiment demonstrates a new way for in-situ study of hydrogenation behaviors of other hydrogen storage alloys.
We present an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) microscope using a Schwarzschild objective which is optimized for single-shot sub-micrometer imaging of laser-plasma targets. The microscope has been designed and constructed for imaging the scattering from an EUV-heated solid-density hydrogen jet. Imaging of a cryogenic hydrogen target was demonstrated using single pulses of the free-electron laser in Hamburg (FLASH) free-electron laser at a wavelength of 13.5 nm. In a single exposure, we observe a hydrogen jet with ice fragments with a spatial resolution in the sub-micrometer range. In situ EUV imaging is expected to enable novel experimental capabilities for warm dense matter studies of micrometer-sized samples in laser-plasma experiments.
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