Material development towards a solid 100 kW electron-gamma converter for TRIUMF-ARIEL

A series of irradiation tests have been performed at TRIUMF to investigate different material pairings to act as high-power electron-to-gamma converter for the ARIEL Electron Target East (AETE). The bulk of the converter body will be made out of an aluminum alloy with a sub-millimeter high-Z metal layer bonded to the surface facing the incoming electron beam. This contribution presents the approach chosen to select the optimal material for the high-Z layer, describes the tests performed and shows result which led to the successful selection of a specific tantalum-aluminum pairing as the future ARIEL converter material.