Amorphisation of ZnAl2O4 spinel under heavy ion irradiation

Alexis Quentin (1) , Isabelle Monnet (1) , D. Gosset (2) , B. Lefrançois (1) , Serge Bouffard (1)

1 CIMAP - UMR 6252 - Centre de recherche sur les Ions, les MAtériaux et la Photonique
2 LA2M - Laboratoire d'Analyse Microstructurale des Matériaux

ZnAl2O4 spinels have been irradiated with several ions (Ne, S, Kr and Xe) at the IRRSUD beamline of the GANIL facility, in order to determine irradiation conditions (stopping power, fluence) for amorphisation. We observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) that with Xe ions at 92 MeV, individual ion tracks are still crystalline, whereas an amorphisation starts below a fluence of 5 x 1012 cm-2 up to a total amorphisation between 1 x 1013 and 1 x 1014 cm-2. The coexistence of amorphous and crystalline domains in the same pristine grain is clearly visible in the TEM images. All the crystalline domains remain close to the same orientation as the original grain. According to TEM and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) results, the stopping power threshold for amorphisation is between 9 and 12 keV nm-1.

Keywords: Spinel; Amorphisation; Irradiation; X-ray diffraction; Transmission electron microscopy

Domains: Physics [physics]; Condensed Matter [cond-mat]; Materials Science [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Alexis Quentin, Isabelle Monnet, D. Gosset, B. Lefrançois, Serge Bouffard. Amorphisation of ZnAl2O4 spinel under heavy ion irradiation. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, 2009, 267, pp.980-982. ⟨cea-00375384⟩