Field Emission-Type Scanning Electron Microscope for Examination of Irradiated Fuels

A field emission-type scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) for observation of irradiated fuels and materials was installed at the Reactor Fuel Examination Facility at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. A cell with remote-handling systems only for the FE-SEM was made to enable safe manipulation of highly radioactive samples. Some parts of the FE-SEM were modified for the remote handling outside the cell. The energy dispersive spectrometer modified for the samples was also equipped on the FE-SEM to determine element compositions of the observed samples. After the modifications, characterization tests were carried out using deposited gold film and uranium rock samples that were unirradiated. In results of the tests, high-resolution images of those specimens were obtained with high magnification above 10 000. From those results, it was expected that the FE-SEM kept the high performance even after the modifications and would be utilized for radioactive samples.