Radiation Resistance of Fluorite-Structured Nuclear Oxides

Fluorite-structure oxides are radiation-resistant materials making them ideal candidates for uses as nuclear fuels or as inert matrices for actinide transmutation. The radiation tolerance of urania and cubic zirconia single crystals was investigated by external ion irradiation in predominating domains of electronic and nuclear stopping of bombarding particles. Damage kinetics show that the behavior of the two investigated fluorite-type oxides is almost the same: (i) at low-energy a two-stage disordering process is exhibited--first a ballistic step due to the formation of radiation-induced defects and second a crystal fragmentation induced by the formation of gas bubbles at large concentration-; (ii) at high energy a one-stage damage kinetics associated with the formation of ion tracks whose overlapping at high fluence results in the formation of nanometer-sized domains with a small disorientation.