Growth and oxidization stability of cubic Zr1−xGdxN solid solution thin films

Abstract

We report Zr1−xGdxN thin films deposited by magnetron sputter deposition. We show a solid solubility of the highly neutron absorbing GdN into ZrN along the whole compositional range, which is in excellent agreement with our recent predictions by first-principles calculations. An oxidization study in air shows that Zr1−xGdxN with x reaching from 1 to close to 0 fully oxidizes, but that the oxidization is slowed down by an increased amount of ZrN or stopped by applying a capping layer of ZrN. The crystalline quality of Zr0.5Gd0.5N films increases with substrate temperatures increasing from 100 °C to 900 °C.

Development and characterization of detectors for large area application in neutron scattering and small area application in neutron reflectometry

“…The goal is to customize the production of Gd samples for the testing phase of the detector, in order to have Gd converters available and at a relative low price. Several studies on deposition techniques empoying the Gadolinium have been performed; some literature references are reported in [202,203,204,205,206].…”