Date of Award

Fall 1984

Document Type

Thesis - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

Cartz, L.

Second Advisor

Karioris, F. G.

Abstract

Radiation damage in zircon has been carried out by bombarding with Ne, Ar, Kr or Xe ions of energy 1-3 MeV. The intensities of the x-ray diffraction peaks of damaged zircon decrease exponentially with fluence without changing angular position or peak width. This implies a simple model of damage mechanism and permits the definition of the damage cross-section, DM, by "formula" Where IF and I0 are corrected x-ray diffraction intensities at fluence F and O respectively. The damage cross-sections of zircon are found to increase with atomic number and the energy of the bombarding ions. The morphological changes due to irradiation are observed by SEM, when micrographs of the same field of view are taken before and after irradiation. At high fluence, the irradiated particles increase in size and become glass-like in appearance. This may be due to swelling of the damaged structure by the absorption of the bombarding ions as a gas, or by a radiation creep process.

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