Capability of Resisting Γ-Ray Irradiation and Rietveld Structurerefinement of Zircon

In order to investigate the structural stability for zircon in mothball waste form of radionuclide to resist γ-ray irradiation, the zircon crystals, which are collected from Australia, are studied. The crystal grains are irradiated by a60Co γ-ray source with 1728 kGy doses. The chemical compositions of zircons are analyzed by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF). Moreover, phases, structures and microstructures of the samples before and after γ-ray irradiation are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results indicate that the new phases are not found in the crystals before and after γ-ray irradiation with 1728 kGy. The crystal cell parameters change by 10-4 before and after irradiation. Moreover, no obvious damage to the structure is found in the zircon irradiated by γ-ray with 1728 kGy dose. So, the zircon possesses a better capability to resist γ-ray irradiation which hardly influence the degree of disorder for zircon.