Structural effects in UO2 thin films irradiated with U ions

•Quantitative characterisation of radiation damage by kernel average misorientation.•UO2 (111) plane showed higher irradiation tolerance than (110) plane.•UO2 film-YSZ substrate interface is stable under low fluence irradiation.•(001), (110), (111) single crystal UO2 thin films on YSZ substrates are expected. This work presents the results of a detailed structural characterisation of irradiated and unirradiated single crystal thin films of UO2. Thin films of UO2 were produced by reactive magnetron sputtering onto (001), (110) and (111) single crystal yttria-stabilised zirconia (YSZ) substrates. Half of the samples were irradiated with 110MeV 238U31+ ions to fluences of 5×1010, 5×1011 and 5×1012ions/cm2 to induce radiation damage, with the remainder kept for reference measurements. It was observed that as-produced UO2 films adopted the crystallographic orientation of their YSZ substrates. The irradiation fluences used in this study however, were not sufficient to cause any permanent change in the crystalline nature of UO2. It has been demonstrated that the effect of epitaxial re-crystallisation of the induced radiation damage can be quantified in terms of kernel average misorientation (KAM) and different crystallographic orientations of UO2 respond differently to ion irradiation.