Microstructural Investigation of Au Ion-Irradiated Eu-Doped LaPO4 Ceramics and Single Crystals

To mimic radiation damage by recoiling nuclei following alpha-decay, ceramics and single crystals of LaPO4 monazite doped with Eu(III) were irradiated with 14 MeV Au5+ ions at three different fluences. The crystallinity, local coordination environments, and topography of the samples were probed using numerous methods including grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), vertical scanning interferometry (VSI), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman, and luminescence spectroscopy. GIXRD data collected from the irradiated regions of the ceramics revealed fluence dependent amorphization. A similar level of amorphization was detected for samples irradiated with 5×1013 ions/cm2 (fluence, F1) and 1×1014 ions/cm2 (F2), while a slightly lower contribution to the scattering signal from the amorphous part was obtained for the sample irradiated with the highest fluence of 1×1015 ions/cm2 (F3). VSI showed clear swelling of entire grains at the highest ion fluence, while more localized damage to grain boundaries was detected for ceramic samples irradiated at the lowest fluence. Single crystal specimens showed no pronounced topography changes following irradiation. SEM backscattered electron images revealed that the ceramic irradiated at the highest fluence exhibited topological features indicative of grain surface melting or softening and displacement of grains. Finally, Raman and luminescence data showed a different degree of disorder in polycrystalline vs. single crystal samples. While changes to PO4 stretching and bending vibrations could be observed in the ceramics, these changes were more subtle or not present in the single crystals. The opposite was observed when probing the local Ln-O environment using Eu(III) luminescence, where the larger changes in terms of an elongation of the Eu-O (or La-O) bond and an increasing relative disorder with increasing fluence were observed only for the single crystals. The dissimilar trends observed in irradiated single crystals and ce