Study of the mechanisms of the t-ZrO2 → c-ZrO2 type polymorphic transformations in ceramics as a result of irradiation with heavy Xe22+ ions

In this work, we present the results of a study of the t-ZrO2 -> c-ZrO2 type polymorphic transformations in ZrO2 ceramics resulting from irradiation with heavy ions with different energies and fluences. The relevance of this work lies in obtaining new data on the radiation resistance of oxide ceramics to irradiation, as well as the effect of defect formation processes on the change in structural and strength properties. During the studies carried out, it was found that an increase in the energy of incident ions leads to an acceleration of the polymorphic transformation processes, and in the case of an ion energy of 230 MeV, the complete polymorphic transformation occurs at an irradiation dose of 5 x 10(13) ion/cm(2). It was found that polymorphic transformations caused by irradiation lead to crystal lattice swelling and deformation. At the same time, depending on the degree of polymorphic transformations, the crystal structure deformation rate changes. An analysis of the strength properties showed that the formation of a more stable cubic phase at high radiation doses slows down the processes of hardness and swelling reduction. The dependences obtained indicate that in the case of incident ion energies of more than 200 MeV, the formed cubic c-ZrO2 phase leads to an increase in resistance to radiation damage and a slowdown in degradation processes.