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Dynamic annealing of defects in irradiated zirconia-based ceramics

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Abstract

We have observed efficient damage recovery in large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of 30 keV Zr recoils in pure zirconia and yttria-stabilized zirconia, which is in stark contrast to radiation damage accumulation in zircon. Dynamic annealing is highly effective in zirconia during the first 5 ps of damage evolution, especially in the presence of oxygen structural vacancies. This results in near-complete recovery of damage. Damage recovery on the cation sublattice is assisted by the anion sublattice recovery, which explains the remarkable radiation tolerance of stabilized zirconia. Ceramics engineered to heal themselves in this fashion hold great promise for use in high-radiation environments or for safely encapsulating high-level radioactive waste over geological time scales.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, United States Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830. It was performed using the Molecular Science Computing Facility (MSCF) in the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), a national scientific user facility sponsored by the United States Department of Energy (USDOE), Office of Biological and Environmental Research (OBER), and located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), it used resources of National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. DOE under Contract No. DE-AC03-76SF00098.

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  1. Fundamental and Computational Sciences Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington, 99352, USA

    Ram Devanathan & William J. Weber

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  1. Ram Devanathan
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  2. William J. Weber
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Correspondence to Ram Devanathan.

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Devanathan, R., Weber, W.J. Dynamic annealing of defects in irradiated zirconia-based ceramics. Journal of Materials Research 23, 593–597 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1557/JMR.2008.0104

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