Irradiation response of Nd2Zr2O7 under heavy ions irradiation

This paper studied the irradiation behavior of Nd2Zr2O7 ceramics under 2.0 MeV Xe20+ irradiation to high fluences from 4.08 × 1013 ions/cm2 to 5.28 × 1016 ions/cm2. Phase transformation, from pyrochlore to fluorite and finally to amorphization, have been discovered. In addition, the amorphous fraction increases with enhanced fluences, whereas it decreases with growing depth. Slight changes in Raman spectroscopy indicates that cation disordering is the mainly induced disordering. Obvious microtopography change but homogeneous element distribution have been observed through SEM-EDX. The HRTEM-SAED test verifies the irradiation induced order-disorder transition and amorphization. Our work could offer a set of detailed data for evaluating pyrochlores structural solidified body holding with nuclear waste.