Effect of irradiation with heavy Xe22+ ions with energies of 165–230 MeV on change in optical characteristics of ZrO2 ceramic

Abstract The aim of this work is to study the effect of irradiation with heavy Xe22+ ions with energies of 165 MeV, 200 MeV, and 230 MeV on the change in the optical properties of ZrO2 ceramic. The choice of ion energies, as well as irradiation fluences of 1013-1014 ion/cm2, is primarily due to the possibility of simulating radiation damage in ceramics that occurs when overlapping damaged areas in the material, comparable to damage from fission fragments of uranium nuclei in an atomic reactor. Using UV–Vis spectroscopy methods, changes in the throughput of ceramics were evaluated depending on the irradiation fluence and the energy of incident ions. It was found that a change in the irradiation conditions leads to the formation of irradiation-induced defects with an energy of 2.4–2.45 eV in the structure, the concentration of which increases with the irradiation dose. Changes in the band gap and refractive index depending on irradiation fluence and incident ions energy indicate a change in the electronic and optical density of ceramics, as well as the formation of additional absorbing centers in the structure.