Biography
Cade Abbott is a third-year undergraduate student studying nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Cade’s research primarily investigates the average and local ordering of a complex-oxide called Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ). To understand the atomic structure, Cade utilized a solid state synthesis technique to create a series of YSZ with varying yttria content. Then, the samples were prepared and loaded into sample holders to obtain x-ray diffraction and neutron total scattering data. The x-ray diffraction patterns were analyzed in GSAS-II to obtain information about the average-, or long-, range ordering of YSZ. Then, small box refinements of the neutron scattering data were performed in PDFgui to understand the local structure of YSZ. Future analysis will entail the use of Reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) modeling techniques to generate a more accurate model of the YSZ unit cell for each composition. Cade is also working on an irradiated series of pyrochlore compounds to investigate the effects of radiation on the crystallographic structure
