Defect recovery and damage reduction in borosilicate glasses under double ion beam irradiation

A sodium borosilicate glass was irradiated sequentially and simultaneously with alpha particles and gold ions. Alpha particles induced partial recovery of the network damage and mechanical properties in the gold pre-irradiated glass, while no such recovery effect was observed during gold irradiation of the alpha pre-irradiated glass. The damage capacity of the gold ions was significantly reduced during simultaneous irradiation with alpha particles and gold ions. These results highlight that the irradiation sequence of the ions plays an important role in controlling the final damage level; and if properly employed, irradiation can be employed to induce defect recovery. Such results are of paramount importance to understand the radiation damage in nuclear reactor components and in nuclear waste glass matrices which are subjected to multiple particle irradiation