High density electronic excitation damage in fluorite structure oxides

Takaki, Seiya  ; Yasuda, Kazuhiro*; Matsumura, Sho*; Ishikawa, Norito   

Advanced nuclear application materials are irradiated by fast neutrons, electrons, a particles and fission fragments, so formation of radiation damage and microstructure evolution are induced by pile-up effect of those radiation. Behavior of point defects in materials which has ion and covalent bonding is influenced by electronic excitation. Especially, high-density electronic excitation damage induced by fission fragments, induce to form cylindrical defect, so called ion track in the materials to result in influence for microstructural evolution in fuel materials. This study aims to clarify the structure of ion tracks in CeO and cubic ZrO (YSZ) irradiated with swift heavy ions by using several transmission electron microscopies. It was shown that the density of vacancy at the core damage region of ion tracks is increased and the O anion lattice is preferentially disordered at such region. In addition to, high density dislocation was formed in CeO with irradiated by high fluence. This result support STEM observation. In case of YSZ, the size and the areal density of ion tracks is smaller than those of CeO. The difference of ion tracks between CeO and YSZ is presumably due to the difference in the recovery process from the thermal spike regime, which is influenced by the presence of structural vacancy in oxide sublattice.