Structural effects in UO2 thin films irradiated with U ions

Aleksej Popel, Anna Maria Adamska, Peter George Martin, Oliver D Payton, G.I. Lampronti, Loren Picco, Liam Payne, Ross Springell, Thomas Bligh Scott, I. Monnet, Ian Farnan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)
351 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This work presents the results of a detailed structural characterisation of irradiated and unirradiated single crystal thin films of UO2. Thin films of UO2 were produced by reactive magnetron sputtering onto (001), (110) and (111) single crystal yttria-stabilised zirconia (YSZ) substrates. Half of the samples were irradiated with 110 MeV 238U31+ ions to fluences of 5 × 1010, 5 × 1011 and 5 × 1012 ions/cm2 to induce radiation damage, with the remainder kept for reference measurements. It was observed that as-produced UO2 films adopted the crystallographic orientation of their YSZ substrates. The irradiation fluences used in this study however, were not sufficient to cause any permanent change in the crystalline nature of UO2. Conversely, it has been demonstrated that the effect of epitaxial re-crystallisation of the induced radiation damage can be quantified in terms of kernel average misorientation (KAM). Thus, it has been shown that different crystallographic orientations of UO2 respond differently to ion irradiation.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8-15
Number of pages8
JournalNuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms
Volume386
Early online date24 Sept 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2016

Research Groups and Themes

  • Engineering Mathematics Research Group

Keywords

  • UO2
  • single crystal
  • ion irradiation
  • thin film
  • nano-structure
  • EBSD

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  • Ionic solutions of two-dimensional materials

    Cullen, P., Cox, K., Subhan, M., Picco, L., Payton, O., Buckley, D., Miller, T., Hodge, S., Skipper, N. T., Tileli, V. & Howard, C., Mar 2017, In: Nature Chemistry. 9, 3, p. 244–249 6 p.

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

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    67 Citations (Scopus)
    547 Downloads (Pure)
  • NERC Big Data Capital Call 2013

    Scott, T. B. (Principal Investigator)

    1/11/131/04/14

    Project: Research

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