Morphology Characterization of Uranium Particles From Laser Ablated Uranium Material

Metallic uranium and uranium dioxide material were ablated by laser beam in order to simulate the process of forming the uranium particles in pyrochemical process. The morphology characteristic of uranium particles and the surface of uranium material were represented by SEM and TEM. Those two kinds of materials are melted，the surface of metal uranium presents a series wavelike segments and the surface of dioxide uranium presents pellets aggregation under the bombardment of laser beam. The irregular micron-sized particles and about 1 μm spherical particles occurred in ambient environment. Silver aerosol particles produced by explosion also were characterized as spherical particles. The results show that the regular uranium oxide spheres with high density characteristic pyrochemical process are quite different from particles with low temperature denudation. They are characteristic of pyrochemical process based on particle morphology. These results will provide references for uranium particles research related to high temperature and high pressure process.