Swift heavy ion tracks in nanocrystalline Y4Al2O9

Abstract

We report the first results of a TEM study of structural changes induced by high energy xenon and bismuth ions in Y4Al2O9 nanoparticles (10 to 100 nm grain size) in the range of electronic stopping powers 6 ÷ 35 keV/nm. It was found that swift Xe an Bi ion irradiation, starting from threshold energy loss ∼ 8 keV/nm, leads to the formation of continuous amorphous latent tracks, while discontinuous tracks are observed at ∼ 6 keV/nm. No effect of grain size on the ion track parameters was observed for all specific ionizing energy losses used in experiments.