Application of Transmission Electron Microscopy to Radiation Damage in Ceramics

Ceramics are becoming increasingly important in many radiation environments. In addition to refractory fissionable fuels, electrical insulators will be needed for instrumentation in breeder reactor systems and will be widely applied in all fusion reactor concepts, including first‐wall coatings, blanket gaps, injectors, divertors, magnet insulation, and windows. These applications require mechanically stable (and in some cases transparent) dielectric solids which must maintain electrical as well as mechanical integrity under severe radiation fields. Refractory ceramic materials of low atomic number will be increasingly useful in structural applications as well because they resist activation and contribute less objectionable sputter contaminants. Ceramic solids are also likely to be increasingly utilized as repository media for active nuclear wastes. The irradiation behavior of these nonmetallic materials is critical and at present poorly understood, but transmission electron microscopy is beginning to reveal significant similarities, as well as substantial differences, in their behavior as compared to that of better‐characterized metallic solids.