Helium Irradiation and Implantation Effects on the Structure of Amorphous Silicon Oxycarbide

Qing Su; Shinsuke Inoue; Manabu Ishimaru; Jonathan Gigax; Tianyao Wang; Hepeng Ding; Michael J Demkowicz; Lin Shao; Michael Nastasi

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-04247-x

Helium Irradiation and Implantation Effects on the Structure of Amorphous Silicon Oxycarbide

Sci Rep. 2017 Jun 20;7(1):3900. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-04247-x.

Authors

Qing Su¹, Shinsuke Inoue², Manabu Ishimaru², Jonathan Gigax³, Tianyao Wang³, Hepeng Ding⁴, Michael J Demkowicz⁴, Lin Shao³, Michael Nastasi^{5

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Affiliations

¹ Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68583-0857, USA. qsu3@unl.edu.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Tobata, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, 804-8550, Japan.
³ Department of Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843-3128, USA.
⁴ Materials Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA.
⁵ Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68583-0857, USA.
⁶ Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68583-0857, USA.
⁷ Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68588-0298, USA.

Abstract

Despite recent interest in amorphous ceramics for a variety of nuclear applications, many details of their structure before and after irradiation/implantation remain unknown. Here we investigated the short-range order of amorphous silicon oxycarbide (SiOC) alloys by using the atomic pair-distribution function (PDF) obtained from electron diffraction. The PDF results show that the structure of SiOC alloys are nearly unchanged after both irradiation up to 30 dpa and He implantation up to 113 at%. TEM characterization shows no sign of crystallization, He bubble or void formation, or segregation in all irradiated samples. Irradiation results in a decreased number of Si-O bonds and an increased number of Si-C and C-O bonds. This study sheds light on the design of radiation-tolerant materials that do not experience helium swelling for advanced nuclear reactor applications.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't