Evidence of a phase transition induced in zirconia by high energy heavy ions

Monoclinic zirconia samples were irradiated with 300 MeV Ge and Ni ions at increasing ion fluences. Their structural evolution was monitored in situ by x-ray diffraction and ex situ by Raman spectroscopy. No amorphization of zirconia was observed in both cases. However, a transition from the monoclinic to the tetragonal phase was found in the case of Ge ion irradiation. On the contrary, no such effect was detected upon Ni ion irradiation. A comparison of these experiments indicates that the electronic energy loss released by swift heavy ion irradiation needs to be quite in excess of ∼12 keV nm−1 in order to induce a monoclinic to a tetragonal phase transition in pure (i.e., unstabilized) zirconia.