Some aspects of radiation resistance of wide-gap metal oxides

Abstract

Wide-gap oxides drastically differ in radiation resistance against nonimpact mechanisms of defect creation depending on the ratio between the values of the energy gap E g and the formation energy of a pair of Frenkel defects (FD) E FD . Materials with E g > E FD are radiation-sensitive even at a low excitation density, while the efficiency of FD creation in the materials with E g < E FD is noticeable only under a high excitation density or in the presence of impurity centers serving as the promoters of radiation damage due to the nonimpact mechanisms. Novel experimental results on the FD creation in the bulk of MgO single crystals ( E g < E FD ) irradiated by swift uranium ions at 300 K and 5 keV electrons at 6 K are presented. The prospects of luminescent protection against radiation damage as well as of the decrease of the luminescence efficiency due to the suppression of nonradiative recombination of electrons and holes (both relaxed and nonrelaxed) by doping the material with a sufficient amount of luminescent impurity ions are considered on the example of spectral transformers for plasma display panels.