Exploring helium retention from technical materials: Development and investigation

Materials used to study nuclear fusion can retain atmospheric helium unless pretreated before an experiment. Understanding helium outgassing is important for accurate diagnostics in experiments surrounding nuclear fusion. The presence of helium is often cited as the primary evidence that a nuclear reaction has occurred, so it is imperative that known sources of helium are mitigated prior to proceeding with novel nuclear experiments. It is also necessary to ensure hermeticity when transferring gas aliquots from an experiment to a mass spectrometer. In this article, we present studies of helium leak rates in systems used in novel nuclear experiments. We also present studies of helium retention in materials subjected to various heating profiles and atmospheric concentrations. Without pretreatment, 12-inch lengths of both 3/8" diameter tubes and 1/2″ diameter stainless-steel 316 tubing yielded an average areal outgassing amount of 0.64 pmol/cm2. If pretreatment is impractical, then the results may be scaled based on the tubing length necessary for constructing custom experimental equipment. It also may reabsorb 4He from the atmosphere in time. These studies also demonstrate that it is necessary to pretreat most materials prior to performing experiments where the presence of 4He is being used as an indicator for novel nuclear reactions.