High-throughput Down-selection of Fusion Candidate Materials

Abstract

Developing radiation-resistant fusion reactor materials is constrained by the slow pace of conventional irradiation qualification methodologies, which usually require extensive one-at-a-time irradiation campaigns and post-irradiation characterization. At the current pace of development, we may not discover the materials necessary to deploy fusion power plants at desired rates. In this work, we present a high-throughput (HT) experimental framework for the accelerated down-selection of fusion-relevant, Cu-Cr-Ta RF antenna materials by integrating combinatorial synthesis, in situ ion irradiation, and multi-property screening within a unified workflow. A 2D compositional Cu-Cr-Ta gradient wafer was fabricated by physical vapor deposition and characterized using in situ ion irradiation transient grating spectroscopy I3TGS. Radiation-induced surface acoustic wave frequency fluctuations were used as a rapid proxy for primary defect accumulation, while thermal diffusivity measurements were obtained simultaneously during irradiation. Complementary HT characterization included EDS compositional mapping, four-point probe electrical resistivity measurements, and waste disposal rating calculations to evaluate long-term activation behavior. This integrated methodology enabled an acceleration with respect to conventional irradiation approaches by more than 100 times, from months to hours to analyze 78 new materials.