EXAFS study of the structural phase transition in the americium zirconate pyrochlore

The 241Am2Zr2O7 phase undergoes a structural transition from pyrochlore to defect fluorite driven by alpha self-irradiation. In an effort to better understand the underlying phenomena of this order-disorder transition, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and X-ray absorption fine-structure (XAFS) spectroscopy experiments were conducted on two samples aged for 40 days (0.02 dpa) and 370 days (0.21 dpa), respectively. While the XAFS data support the phase transition observed by XRD, they reveal different local coordinations of americium and zirconium. The transition occurs through oxygen Frenkel and cation antisite formation. The XAFS, clearly showed that the ZrO polyhedron is stable against irradiation, probably a main factor explaining the excellent resistance to amorphization observed for americium zirconia defect fluorite structures.