Abstract
Radiation damage effects in polycrystalline pellets of the rare earth sesquioxide Dy2O3 irradiated with 300 keV Kr2+ ions were studied by combining grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) with transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Radiation damage was introduced using 300 keV Kr2+ ions to fluences up to 1 × 1020 Kr m−2 at cryogenic temperature. GIXRD and cross-sectional TEM observations revealed that the crystal structure of the irradiated Dy2O3 transformed from a cubic, so-called C-type rare earth sesquioxide structure to a monoclinic, B-type rare earth sesquioxide structure upon ion irradiation. In addition, TEM and high-resolution electron microscopy (HREM) indicated that the transformed surface Dy2O3 layer adopts an epitaxial orientation relationship with the substrate Dy2O3.
Acknowledgments
This work was sponsored by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering. P. Lu wishes to express his gratitude to the University of New Mexico for the use of their electron microscopy facility.