Fusion Engineering and Design 75–79 (2005) 759–763 Characterization and stability studies of titanium beryllides E. Alves a,b,∗ , L.C. Alves a,b , N. Franco a , M.R. da Silva b , A. Pa´ ul c , J.B. Hegeman d , F. Druyts e a Instituto Tecnol´ ogico e Nuclear, Departamento de F´ ısica, EN 10, 2686-953 Sacav´ em, Portugal b CFNUL, University of Lisbon, Av. Prof. Gama Pinto 2, 1699 Lisbon, Portugal c Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales, Av. Americo Vespucio s/n, 41092 Sevilla, Portugal d NRG, P.O. Box 25, 1755 ZG, Petten, The Netherlands e SCK·CEN, The Belgian Nuclear Research Center, Boeretang 200, B-2400 Mol, Belgium Available online 3 August 2005 Abstract Beryllides appear as potential candidates to replace Be in future fusion power plants due to their improved properties. However, while the fabrication and properties of beryllium are well established a lack of knowledge still exists for beryllides. In this work, we present a detailed characterization of titanium beryllides, provided by JAERI in the frame of the IEA agreement, using a large number of techniques. Compositions of Be–5 at% Ti and Be–7 at% Ti were used to produce the samples. High resolution X-ray diffraction clearly shows the formation of Be 10 Ti phase for the Be–7 at% Ti composition. For the Be–5 at% Ti, the major phase is Be 12 Ti with traces of a Be-rich phase. In both cases, no evidence was found for the presence of pure Be phase in the samples. Ti elemental maps obtained with a scanning nuclear microprobe reveals the presence of regions containing large amounts of Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu and in some cases U. These impurities are common in Be and this behaviour suggests that a segregation process occurs during the beryllide formation. Moreover, the RBS spectra also show the presence of oxygen in this region while it seems to be depleted from the beryllide bulk. The oxidation seems to occur preferentially along the beryllide boundaries and Ti depleted region. © 2005 Published by Elsevier B.V. Keywords: Beryllides; Nuclear microprobe; X-ray diffraction; Scanning electron microscopy 1. Introduction Beryllium is among the best choices as neutron mul- tiplier to increase the tritium breeding ratio (TBR) in the next generation of fusion reactors based on solid ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +351 219946086; fax: +351 219941525. E-mail address: ealves@itn.pt (E. Alves). lithium breeder ceramics. The next step towards fusion power plants is the construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) where the reference breeding blanket design foresees the use of beryllium as a plasma-facing component and as a neutron multiplier in the form of a pebble bed [1]. In fact, the design of such breeder blanket using lithium ceramics pebbles and RAFM steel as structural mate- rial foresees the use of Be pebble beds. Since pure 0920-3796/$ – see front matter © 2005 Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.fusengdes.2005.06.145