The detection of hydrogen isotopes and helium in metals has a wide range of applications from hydrogen embrittlement studies to tritium retention in fusion reactor wall tiles. A successful method for investigating the amount and mobility of these species is temperature programmed desorption (TPD), also known as thermal desorption spectrometry (TDS) or thermal desorption analysis (TDA). Analysis by TPD involves positioning the sample in an Ultra High Vacuum chamber and heating the samples at different linear ramp rates while collecting the desorption spectra using a quadrupole mass spectrometer. The Hiden TPD Workstation is a complete experimental workstation designed for this application and is optimised to obtain the maximum sensitivity for desorption of hydrogen isotopes and helium from metals.
