Relationships between experimental signatures and processing history for a variety of PuO2 materials

The primary oxide of plutonium, PuO2, is a complex material due to ongoing change in lattice structure resulting from radioactive alpha decay. In addition, the element plutonium is complex, existing in various allotropes, which can influence formation of oxides due to different nucleation and growth mechanisms. The juxtaposition of these unique properties, along with formation conditions of the initial oxide, makes for PuO2 materials with a wide variety of local and bulk experimental signatures. This work measures these signatures with X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy from five different oxide materials, and relates these signatures to specific PuO2 production and aging routes. This information is of potential use in nuclear fuels processing and production, nuclear non-proliferation, forensics analyses, and interplanetary power sources.