Characterization of SiC electron beam irradiated

SiC possesses great potential as a structural or semiconductor material under radiation settings, due to the fact that it has excellent high temperature properties, radiation resistance and chemical stability. The exposure of SiC to radiation causes atomic scale defects via the displacement and the ionizations of target atoms, induced by incident energetic particles. In this work, SiC powder was pressed to form pellets, and was in turn sintered at a heating rate of 6 degree Celsius/ min to 1400 degree Celsius for 2 hours. For irradiation testing, SiC pellets were irradiated (EPS-3000, 3.0 MeV, 10 mA) at a speed of 1.11 ms-1, and total radiation dosage of 200 kGy. After irradiation, the pellets were allowed to cool and sent for morphological analysis using the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) for phase identification, hardness test and thermal expansion characteristics up to 500 degree Celsius. The results show that the hardness for post-irradiated samples are capable of withstanding loads of (122.5 HVF), compared to unradiated samples (118.7 HVF). The amorphous content of the samples increases after irradiation, however, other trace element or phase composition changes were undetected. The results show that the surface roughness of the irradiated samples increased. Furthermore, the morphological analysis of the identified irradiated sample detected the diffusion of surface particles, which was assumed to be the factor that caused the enhancement of the hardness and thermal expansion coefficient. (Author)