Amorphization of oxides under irradiation with fast neutrons

Abstract

A variant of the solid-state radiation amorphization as a result of accumulation of the critical concentration of defects in the crystal has been considered using the example of oxides with the garnet and perovskite structures irradiated by fast neutrons. It has been shown that such defects can be antisite defects, the formation of which leads to considerable static displacements from the equilibrium sites of nearest ions and, consequently, to the loss of stability of the crystalline structure. The dependences of the root-mean-square displacements of oxygen ions on the concentration of the antisite defects are constructed based on the analysis of the experimental data. It has been established that the so-called critical concentrations of antisite defects, at which the spontaneous amorphization occurs, differ for oxides with the garnet and perovskite structures. As the criterion of the spontaneous radiation amorphization, it is proposed to consider the critical static displacement of the ions, which is identical for studied oxides and equal to ∼0.28 A, or ∼0.14 in fractions of interatomic distances, which is close to the well-known Lindemann melting criterion.