Ceramics destined for use in hostile environments such as nuclear reactors or waste immobilization must be highly durable and especially resistant to radiation damage effects. In particular, they must not be prone to amorphization or swelling. Few ceramics meet these criteria and much work has been devoted in recent years to identifying radiation-tolerant ceramics and the characteristics that promote radiation tolerance. This paper examines trends in radiation damage behavior for families of compounds related by crystal structure.

The link provided leads to the abstract only. The full article is available for sale from Nature Publishing Group.

Citation: Sickafus K.E, Grimes R.W., Valdez, J.A., Cleave A., Tang, M., Ishimaru, M., Corish, S.M., Stanek, C.R., and Uberuaga, B.P. "Radiation-induced amorphization resistance and radiation tolerance in structurally related oxides." Nature Materials 6 (2007): 217 - 223.

Read Abstract