In-situ TEM study of irradiation-induced damage mechanisms in monoclinic-ZrO2

DOI: 10.1016/j.actamat.2020.08.064

Authors: Junliang Liu (University of Oxford) , Anamul Haq Mir (University of Huddersfield) , Guanze He (University of Oxford) , Mohsen Danaie (Diamond Light Source) , Jonathan Hinks (University of Huddersfield) , Stephen Donnelly (University of Huddersfield) , Heidi Nordin (Canadian Nuclear Laboratories) , Sergio Lozano-Perez (University of Oxford) , Chris R. M. Grovenor (University of Oxford)
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Acta Materialia , VOL 199 , PAGES 429 - 442

State: Published (Approved)
Published: October 2020
Diamond Proposal Number(s): 20528 , 23235

Abstract: We have investigated the microstructural and crystallographic evolution of nanocrystalline zirconia under heavy ion irradiation using in-situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and have studied the atomic configurations of defect clusters using aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). Under heavy ion irradiation the monoclinic-ZrO2 is observed to transform into cubic phase, stabilised by the strain induced by irradiation-induced defect clusters. We suggest that the monoclinic-to-cubic transformation is martensitic in nature with an orientation relationship identified to be (100)m∥(100)c and [001]m∥[001]c. By increasing the damage dose, both the formation of voids and irradiation-induced grain growth were observed. A model for the formation of voids is proposed, taking defect interactions into consideration. The study has also demonstrated that high resolution orientation mapping by transmission Kikuchi diffraction (TKD) combined with in-situ irradiation in a TEM is a powerful method to probe the mechanisms controlling irradiation-induced processes, including grain boundary migration, phase transformations and texture evolution.

Journal Keywords: Irradiation damage; Grain growth; In-situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM); transmission Kikuchi diffraction (TKD)

Diamond Keywords: Alloys

Subject Areas: Materials

Diamond Offline Facilities: Electron Physical Sciences Imaging Centre (ePSIC)
Instruments: E02-JEM ARM 300CF

Added On: 03/09/2020 19:27

Discipline Tags:

Earth Sciences & Environment Radioactive Materials Materials Science Nuclear Waste Metallurgy

Technical Tags:

Microscopy Electron Microscopy (EM) Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM)