Study of the radiation resistance of Ni nanotubes to irradiation with Xe22+ ions with an energy equal to fission fragments

Abstract

The paper presents data on the radiation resistance of Ni nanotubes when irradiated with heavy Xe22+ ions with an energy of 230 MeV and fluences of 5 × 1010–5 × 1012 ion/cm2. The choice of fluences of 5 × 1010–5 × 1012 ion/cm2 is due to the possibility of simulating the effects of single ion collisions at low irradiation fluences, for which the probability of two ions entering one point is quite low, and by modeling the effects of overlapping defects from two or more ions at high radiation densities. The initial nanostructures are polycrystalline nanotubes with a face-centered nickel phase. According to the results of X-ray phase analysis, no oxide impurities or oxide phases are observed in the structure of nanotubes, which indicates the absence of oxidative processes in the synthesized nanostructures. Also, for the irradiated samples, there are no new diffraction peaks, which indicates the absence of phase transition processes as a result of irradiation. It was found that, at low irradiation fluences, a change in the orientation of crystallites occurs, which indicates a rearrangement of the crystal structure and partial ordering. However, an increase in the irradiation fluence above 1 × 1011 ion/cm2 leads to a sharp decrease in long-range intensities, as well as a shift of diffraction maxima to the region of small angles, which indicates a distortion of the crystal structure and its partial disordering as a result of irradiation. In the case of large irradiation fluences, which are characterized by the occurrence of areas of overlapping ion trajectories, the material exhibits disorientation of crystallites in the structure, as well as the absence of pronounced texture orientations.