Ion beam-induced luminescence as method of characterization of radiation damage in polycrystalline materials

The problem of information about damage build-up, intensively studied for single crystals, poses many difficulties for polycrystalline materials. The Rutherford Backscattering/Channeling (RBS/C) technique could be applied for single crystals only, but its use is excluded in polycrystalline materials. Therefore the development of a quantitative method well suited for the evaluation of damage level in polycrystalline materials is a must, and still constitutes a major challenge in materials analysis. A comparative study of damage accumulation in magnesium aluminate spinel (MgAl2O4) has been conducted using ionoluminescence (IL) and RBS/C techniques. The results obtained by both methods, demonstrate a two-step character of damage build-up process. The values of the cross-section on the damage creation in each case were estimated using MSDA model. The results presented here confirm the huge potential of the luminescence techniques for damage analysis in single- and polycrystalline samples, and ability of the IL method to perform fast, in situ analysis of damage accumulation process.