Compositional effects on radiation tolerance of amorphous silicon oxycarbide

Radiation Effects in the Crystalline–Amorphous SiOC Polymer-Derived Ceramics: Insights from Experiments and Molecular Dynamics Simulation

“…Amorphous SiOC is reported to possess superior radiation resistance due to its highly disordered structure. − The amorphous structure evolves into a different disordered state. The reconstructive transformation process is envisaged as follows: the ion bombardments can induce collision cascades in SiOC and lead to atomic displacements, accompanied by the breaking and formation of mainly Si–O and Si–C bonds.…”

“…Recently, an amorphous SiOC ceramic composed of aperiodic arranged mixed-bonded Si–O–C tetrahedra units has been reported to be of superior radiation tolerance. − A wide range of irradiation conditions can result in atomic displacement and connectivity topology changes, but there is no sign of crystallization, void formation, or phase segregation. , Through a combination of experiments and modeling, amorphous SiOC ceramic is demonstrated to be “immune” to He-induced damage . However, an amorphous structure usually possesses higher free energy than its crystalline counterpart, which is in a metastable state.…”