Use of ion channeling for the study of the damage induced in ceramics by ion irradiation

Ceramics possess interesting physico-chemical properties that lead to the use of these materials in hostile environments, more particularly in radiative surroundings. For many applications, it is of prime importance to study the damage induced in ceramics by ion bombardment. This paper presents such a study where irradiations are performed with low- and high-energy ions in order to investigate the effects induced in nuclear and electronic slowing-down regimes. The characterization of radiation-induced damage is performed by ion channeling associated with Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and nuclear resonance analysis, by using a new method of analysis of channeling data based on Monte-Carlo simulations. These techniques provide the disorder depth distribution (damage profiling) and the variation of the disorder as a function of the ion fluence (disorder buildup), in both the cationic and anionic sublattices of the investigated material.