Optical anisotropy measurements of TRISO nuclear fuel particle cross-sections: The method

The analysis of two-modulator generalized ellipsometry microscope (2-MGEM) data to extract information on the optical anisotropy of coated particle fuel layers is discussed. Using a high resolution modification to the 2-MGEM, it is possible to obtain generalized ellipsometry images of coating layer cross-sections with a pixel size of 2.5 μm and an optical resolution of ∼4 μm. The most important parameter that can be extracted from these ellipsometry images is the diattenuation, which can be directly related to the optical anisotropy factor (OAF or OPTAF) used in previous characterization studies of tristructural isotropic (TRISO) coated particles. Because high resolution images can be obtained, the data for each coating layer contains >6000 points, allowing considerable statistical analysis. This analysis has revealed that the diattenuation of the inner pyrocarbon (IPyC) and outer pyrocarbon (OPyC) coatings varies significantly throughout the layer. The 2-MGEM data can also be used to determine the principal axis angle of the pyrocarbon layers, which is nearly perpendicular to the TRISO radius (i.e., growth direction) and corresponds to the average orientation of the graphene planes.