High energy radiation stability of nano-crystalline cubic zirconia thin films

Effect of high electronic energy density deposition on the stability of nano-crystalline yttrium stabilized cubic Zirconia thin films was investigated under 100 MeV Ni (Se ~ 13.2 KeV/nm) and 120 MeV Ag (Se ~ 21.3 KeV/nm) ions. The ions and energy were chosen from our previous investigations for which we observed a monoclinic-to-tetragonal phase transformation in ZrO₂ thin films. The films with an average grain size of 22 nm were grown on Si substrates by sol-gel spin coating technique. Although the cubic structure was retained upon irradiation, an effective reduction in crystallinity in the irradiated films was detected as compare to the as deposited films. No traces of amorphization were however observed for any of the fluence and hence the material is irradiation tolerant. (author)