Determination of strain and damage profiles in irradiated materials: Application to cubic zirconia irradiated at high temperature

A methodology is presented that allows to retrieve strain and damage profiles in irradiated single crystals. The approach makes use of high-resolution X-ray diffraction theta-2 theta scans coupled with numerical simulations of the diffraction profiles. The potential of the method is illustrated with cubic yttria-stabilized zirconia single crystals, irradiated with 4 MeV Au2+ ions at different temperatures (25, 500 and 800 degrees C). The simulations reveal that upon increasing ion fluence, the width of the damaged region increases and both the strain and damage levels inside this region increase. The damage build-up occurs according to a two-step mechanism: in the first step, the damage increases slowly up to a critical fluence, above which the second step takes place and is characterized by dramatic increase of the damage. The transition fluence is shifted towards lower values at higher temperatures. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.