The Measurement of Ionic Mobilities in the Anodic Oxides of Tantalum and Zirconium by a Precision Sectioning Technique

Abstract

The technique of removing thin sections of anodic oxides by vibratory polishing has been used in conjunction with implantation of anion, cation, and inert gas radiotracers to measure the mode of anodic oxide formation on Zr and Ta. The measured transport number for metal during the growth of (0.28) is in good agreement with previous work. is shown to grow by oxygen migration and preliminary experiments suggest that the process occurs by rapid movement of the oxygen along defects. Comparison of the movement of anion and cation radiotracers with that of an inert gas provides additional evidence that xenon and krypton may be regarded as immobile markers for use in oxidation studies.