Phase transition of pure zirconia under irradiation: A textbook example

One of the most important goals in ceramic and materials science is to be able to design materials with specific properties. Irradiation seems to be a powerful tool for the design of advanced ceramics because of its ability to modify over different scales the microstructure of solids. Nowadays, it is clearly proved that irradiation induces order–disorder phase transitions in metallic alloys and in some ceramics. In this paper, we show that a displacive phase transition can also be induced by irradiation. Based on many experimental facts, a microscopic model is proposed to explain the displacive phase transition observed in this material after irradiation. Defects, produced in the oxygen sublattice, induce important strain fields on a nanometric scale. This strain field can be handled as a secondary order parameter within the Landau theory approach, leading to a decrease of the phase transition temperature and thus quenching the high temperature tetragonal phase.