Is ``metamictization`` of zircon a phase transition?
- Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom). Dept. of Earth Sciences
- Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
Metamictization is the transition from the crystalline to an aperiodic or amorphous state due to alpha-decay event damage from constituent radionuclides ({sup 238}U, {sup 235}U, and {sup 232}Th) and their daughters. However, this transformation in minerals is part of a larger class of radiation-induced transformations to the amorphous state that has received considerable recent attention as a result of ion- and electron-beam experiments on metals, intermetallics, simple oxides, and complex ceramics and minerals. Diffuse X-ray scattering from single crystals of metamict zircon reveals residual crystallinity even at high fluences (up to 7.2 {times} 10{sup 18} {alpha}-decay events/g). The experimental evidence does not suggest that radiation-induced amorphization is a phase transition. The observations are in good agreement with a nonconvergent, heterogeneous model of amorphization in which damage production is a random process of cascade formation and overlap at increasing fluence. Instead of an amorphization transition, the existence of a percolation transition is postulated. At the level of radiation damage near the percolation point, the heterogeneous strain broadening of X-ray diffraction profiles is reduced whereas the particle-size broadening increases. Simultaneously, the macroscopic swelling of the zircon becomes larger than the maximum expansion of the unit-cell parameters. A suitable empirical parameter that characterizes this transition is the flux, D{sub s}, at which the macroscopic expansion is identical to the maximum expansion of the crystallographic unit cell. In zircon, D{sub s} = 3.5{center_dot}10{sup 18} {alpha}-decay events/g.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-97ER45656
- OSTI ID:
- 684593
- Journal Information:
- American Mineralogist, Vol. 84, Issue 7-8; Other Information: PBD: Jul-Aug 1999
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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