Effects of high pressure thermal treatments in oxygen and helium atmospheres on amorphous silicon dioxide and its radiation hardness

L. Nuccio, S. Agnello, R Boscaino, Benoît Brichard, Marco Van Uffelen

    Research outputpeer-review

    Abstract

    The effects of thermal treatments at 400 °C in oxygen or helium atmospheres at 180 bar on the radiation hardness of amorphous SiO2 are studied. The generation efficiency of several point defects under c irradiation is compared to that of the untreated material. All the effects on point defects generation here observed can be explained in terms of changes in the precursor sites. In particular it has been observed that the thermal treatments can change the precursors sites of point defects both through temperature and pressure related processes, not depending on the atmosphere, and through oxygen related processes creating oxygen excess sites. The presence of dissolved oxygen also inhibits some hydrogen related processes, as the generation of H(I) centers, probably by activating different reactions paths for hydrogen.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1046-1049
    JournalJournal of Non-Crystalline Solids
    Volume355
    Issue number18-21
    DOIs
    StatePublished - May 2009

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