Radiation damage in natural titanites

Abstract

Natural titanites which have incurred radiation damage from the decay, over geologic time, of U and Th incorporated in the samples have been studied by powder X-ray diffraction, differential thermal analysis and infrared spectroscopy. In agreement with previous studies of ionirradiated synthetic titanite, X-ray diffraction indicated that titanite is two to three times more sensitive than zircon to damage from α-decay processes. Differential thermal analysis of samples which were deduced to have accumulated 10–30 percent of the α-fluence required to render the structure completely X-ray amorphous gave a series of exothermic peaks in the 200–800° C range of temperature. In such samples, X-ray and density measurement showed that atomic displacement damage anneals during heating periods of the order of one h in the temperature range 500–800° C. The density of titanite rendered X-ray amorphous by irradiation was estimated to be ∼8 percent lower than that of crystalline titanite.