Radiation effects and annealing kinetics in crystalline silicates, phosphates and complex Nb-Ta-Ti oxides. FInal Report.

摘要

Interaction of heavy particles (alpha-recoil nuclei, fission fragments, implanted ions) with ceramics is complex because they have a wide range of structure types, complex compositions and chemical bonding is variable. Radiation damage can produce diverse results, but most commonly, crystalline periodic materials become either polycrystalline or aperiodic (metamict state). We studied the transition from crystalline to aperiodic state in natural materials that have been damaged by alpha recoil nuclei in the U and Th decay series and in synthetic, analogous structure types which have been amorphized by ion implantation. Transition from crystalline to aperiodic was followed by analysis of XRD, high resolution TEM, and EXAFS/XANE spectroscopy. Use of these techniques with increasing dose provided data on an increasing finer scale as the damage process progressed.