In-situ high temperature irradiation setup for temperature dependent structural studies of materials under swift heavy ion irradiation

An in-situ high temperature (1000 K) setup is designed and installed in the materials science beam line of superconducting linear accelerator at the Inter-University Accelerator Centre (IUAC) for temperature dependent ion irradiation studies on the materials exposed with swift heavy ion (SHI) irradiation. The Gd2Ti2O7 pyrochlore is irradiated using 120 MeV Au ion at 1000 K using the high temperature irradiation facility and characterized by ex-situ X-ray diffraction (XRD). Another set of Gd2Ti2O7 samples are irradiated with the same ion beam parameter at 300 K and simultaneously characterized using in-situ XRD available in same beam line. The XRD studies along with the Raman spectroscopic investigations reveal that the structural modification induced by the ion irradiation is strongly dependent on the temperature of the sample. The Gd2Ti2O7 is readily amorphized at an ion fluence 6 × 1012 ions/cm2 on irradiation at 300 K, whereas it is transformed to a radiation-resistant anion-deficient fluorite structure on high temperature irradiation, that amorphized at ion fluence higher than 1 × 1013 ions/cm2. The temperature dependent ion irradiation studies showed that the ion fluence required to cause amorphization at 1000 K irradiation is significantly higher than that required at room temperature irradiation. In addition to testing the efficiency of the in-situ high temperature irradiation facility, the present study establishes that the radiation stability of the pyrochlore is enhanced at higher temperatures.