Using magnetization measurements to detect small amounts of plutonium hydride formation in plutonium metal

Kim, Jae Wook¹  Mielke, Charles H.²  Zapf, Vivien²  Baiardo, Joseph P.³ 

[1] Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ (United States);Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States);Los

关键词: PU-H2;    PU MAGNETISM;   

DOI  :  10.2172/1160101
RP-ID  :  LA-UR-13-29611
PID  :  OSTI ID: 1160101

美国|英语

来源: SciTech Connect

【 摘 要 】

We report the formation of plutonium hydride in 2 at % Ga-stabilized ??-Pu, with 1 atomic % H charging. We show that magnetization measurements are a sensitive, quantitative measure of ferromagnetic plutonium hydride against the nonmagnetic background of plutonium. It was previously shown that at low hydrogen concentrations, hydrogen forms super-abundant vacancy complexes with plutonium, resulting in a bulk lattice contraction. Here we use magnetization, X-ray and neutron diffraction measurements to show that in addition to forming vacancy complexes, at least 30% of the H atoms bond with Pu to precipitate PuH_x, largely on the surface of the sample with x ~ 1.9. We observe magnetic hysteresis loops below 40 K with magnetic remanence, consistent with precipitates of ferromagnetic PuH_1.9.