Behaviour of Nanocrystalline Silicon Carbide Under Low Energy Heavy Ion Irradiation
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Behaviour of nanocrystalline silicon carbide under low energy heavy ion irradiation Dominique Gosset1, Laurence Luneville2, Gianguido Baldinozzi3, David Simeone1, Auregane Audren4, Yann Leconte4 1: Matériaux Fonctionnels pour l’Energie, Équipe Mixte CEA - CNRS - École Centrale Paris, CEA Saclay, DMN SRMA LA2M, bat. 453, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France 2: Matériaux Fonctionnels pour l’Energie, Équipe Mixte CEA - CNRS - École Centrale Paris, CEA Saclay, DM2S SERMA LLPR, bat. 470, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France 3: Matériaux Fonctionnels pour l’Energie, Équipe Mixte CEA - CNRS - École Centrale Paris, CNRS, SPMS, Ecole Centrale Paris, Grande Voie des Vignes, 92295 Châtenay-Malabry, France 4: CEA Saclay, DSM IRAMIS SPAM, bat. 522, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Abstract Silicon carbide is one of the most studied materials for core components of the next generation of nuclear plants (Gen IV). In order to overcome its brittle properties, materials with nanometric grain size are considered. In spite of the growing interest for nano-structured materials, only few experiments deal with their behaviour under irradiation. To assess and predict their evolution under working conditions, it is important to characterize their microstructure and structure. To this purpose, we have studied microcrystalline and nanocrystalline samples before and after irradiation at room temperature with 4 MeV Au ions. In fact, it is well established that such irradiation conditions lead to amorphisation of the material, which can be restored after annealing at high temperature. We have performed isochronal annealings of both materials to point out the characteristics of the healing process and eventual differences related to the initial microstructure of the samples. To this purpose Grazing Incidence X-Ray Diffraction has been performed to determine the microstructure and structure parameters. We observe the amorphisation of both samples at similar doses but different annealing kinetics are observed. The amorphous nanocrystalline sample recovers its initial crystalline state at higher temperature than the microcrystalline one. This effect is clearly related to the initial microstructures of the materials. Therefore, the grain size appears as a key parameter for the structural stability and mechanical properties of this ceramic material under irradiation.
Introduction In the frame of a sustainable energy production system, the Gen-IV project aims at the development of new nuclear reactors with better yields and safety as compared to the previous generations [1]. Different reactor concepts are considered, among which high temperature, fast neutron spectra reactors present interesting potentialities. However, some components of the core of such concepts require the use of materials able to withstand temperatures around 1000°C in normal conditions and 1300°C in incidental ones that can no longer be supported by the usual metal alloys. New materials such as ceramics are then to be used [2]. As such, silicon carbide has been considered as a possible
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