title: Study of the Decomposition and Phase Transition of Uranium Nitride under UHV Conditions via TDS, XRD, SEM, and XPS.
abstract: Uranium nitrides are among the most promising fuels for Generation IV nuclear reactors, but until now, very little has been known about their thermal stability properties under nonequilibrium conditions. In this work, thermal decomposition of nitrogen-rich uranium nitride (denoted as UN2-x) under ultrahigh-vacuum (UHV) conditions was investigated by thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS). It has been shown that the nitrogen TDS spectrum consists of two peaks at about 723 and 1038 K. The X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray photoelectron microscopy results indicate that UN2-x(UN2phase) decomposed into the α-U2N3phase in the first step and the α-U2N3phase decomposed into the UN phase in the second step.
authors.affiliation: Science and Technology on Surface Physics and Chemistry Laboratory , Mianyang 621908, China.
authors.forename: Xiaofang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Science and Technology on Surface Physics and Chemistry Laboratory , Mianyang 621908, China.
authors.forename: Zhong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Long
authors.affiliation: Science and Technology on Surface Physics and Chemistry Laboratory , Mianyang 621908, China.
authors.forename: Ren
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bin
authors.affiliation: Science and Technology on Surface Physics and Chemistry Laboratory , Mianyang 621908, China.
authors.forename: Ruilong
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Science and Technology on Surface Physics and Chemistry Laboratory , Mianyang 621908, China.
authors.forename: Qifa
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: Science and Technology on Surface Physics and Chemistry Laboratory , Mianyang 621908, China.
authors.forename: Fangfang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Science and Technology on Surface Physics and Chemistry Laboratory , Mianyang 621908, China.
authors.forename: Lizhu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Science and Technology on Surface Physics and Chemistry Laboratory , Mianyang 621908, China.
authors.forename: Yin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Science and Technology on Surface Physics and Chemistry Laboratory , Mianyang 621908, China.
authors.forename: Kezhao
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Liu