LAUSR

Atom Probe Tomography (APT) is routinely employed to determine 3D microstructure and chemistry changes in structural materials used in reactor to understand irradiation effect. These findings help to correlate changes to mechanical and physical properties of materials which are subjected to extreme reactor conditions. Another equally important aspect of nuclear reactors is to be able to predict the changes in the fuel composition and microstructure as a function of burnup for the safety and the economy of a reactor. The burnup calculation is helpful in determining the performance and behavior of fuel during its operation. Also, there is current need to develop advanced fuels with improved properties and performance which requires the experimental data on changes in microstructure, physical and chemical properties after irradiation for feedback process. More often the irradiated microstructure of the fuel is often quite heterogeneous, a reliable method to estimate the local burnup in nuclear fuels with sub-micron high spatial resolution becomes significant for evaluation of the local irradiated microstructure and its correlation to the general behavior of fuels.