Investigation of hardening behavior in Xe ion-irradiated Zr–1Nb

Irradiation hardening behavior of Zr–1Nb was examined by nanoindentation, slow positron annihilation technique, transmission electron microscopy and coplanar extremely asymmetric X-ray diffraction technique. Samples were irradiated at a dose rate of 2.78 × 10⁻⁴ dpa/s to peak doses of 0.15, 0.5, 1.5 and 2.5 dpa with 6.37 MeV Xe²⁶⁺ ion beam at room temperature. The increase in hardness as a function of dose followed a power law expression with the exponent of 0.46. With increasing irradiation dose, more mono-, di- and trivacancies were induced, but their concentration remained constant once formed due to the equilibrium between the formation and recombination of vacancy type clusters during irradiation. Meanwhile, the dislocation loops were also introduced and their linear density increased with dose. The dislocation loops played an important role in the irradiation hardening behavior. But the exact contribution of each microstructural components to the overall hardness still needs further study.