Radiation tolerance of nanostructured ZrN coatings against swift heavy ion irradiation

Nano-structured zirconium nitride layers – on Si substrates – of various thicknesses (0.1, 3, 10 and 20 μm) were irradiated with 167 MeV Xe, 250 MeV Kr and 695 MeV Bi ions to fluences in the range from 3 × 1012 to 2.6 × 1015 cm−2 for Xe, 1 × 1013 to 7.06 × 1013 cm−2 for Kr and 1012 to 1013 cm−2 for Bi. The purpose of these irradiation experiments is to simulate the effects of fission fragment bombardment on nanocrystalline ZrN. The irradiated layers where subsequently analysed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and nano-indentation hardness testing (NIH) techniques. XRD, TEM and NIH results indicate that ZrN has a very high tolerance to the effects of high energy irradiation.