Irradiation studies on carbon nanotube-reinforced boron carbide

Radiation response of carbon nanotube (CNT) reinforced boron carbide composite has been studied for its application as a structural component in nuclear engineering. The composite was bombarded by 140 key He ions at room temperature to a fluence ranging from 1 x 10(14) to 1 x 10(17)cm(-2). Two-dimensional Raman mapping shows inhomogeneous distribution of CNTs, and was used to select regions of interest for damage characterization. For CNTs, the intensities ratio of D-G bands (I-D/I-G) increased with fluence up to a certain value, and decreased at the fluence of 5 x 10(16) cm(-2). This fluence also corresponds to a trend break in the plot of FWHM (full width at half maximum) of G band vs. I-D/I-G ratio, which indicates amorphization of CNTs. The study shows that Raman spectroscopy is a powerful tool to quantitatively characterize radiation damage in CNT-reinforced composites. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.