Structural integrity and damage of glass-ceramics after He ion irradiation: Insights from ZrO2-SiO2 nanocrystalline glass-ceramics

Developing new radiation-resistant materials and understanding the structural damages caused by radiation are persistent goals of material scientists. Here, we report on the structural integrity and damage to ZrO 2 -SiO 2 nanocrystalline glass-ceramics after radiation with 1.4 MeV He ions at three different fluences: 1.0 × 10 16 ions/cm 2 (low), 5.0 × 10 16 ions/cm 2 (moderate), and 1.0 × 10 17 ions/cm 2 (high) at 500 °C. Grazing incident X-ray diffraction shows the tetragonal-ZrO 2 to monoclinic-ZrO 2 phase transformation induced by microstrain from the irradiation. The addition of yttrium indicated tetragonal-ZrO 2 stabilization effect during irradiation. The irradiated glass-ceramics show a Raman signal-enhancement effect probably related to the electronic structure changes of the amorphous SiO 2 component in the glass-ceramics. The formation of microcracks and lattice defects within ZrO 2 nanocrystallites is the main structural damage caused by irradiation. There was no observable amorphization of ZrO 2 nanocrystallites due to irradiation. No obvious He bubbles were detected, either. The formation of microcracks results in a decrease of in the nanohardness of the glass-ceramics. The results provide fundamental experimental data to understand the structural integrity and damage caused by radiation, which could be useful to design radiation‐resistant nanocrystalline glass-ceramics for extremely radioactive environments.