Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2011
Perturbed Angular Correlation spectroscopy of 181Ta nuclei occupying cation sites has been used to investigate microscopic structural properties of several pure and stabilized zirconia materials. The PAC spectra are used to derive the electric field gradients at the tracer nucleus. Thse are compared with calculations based on a simple point-ion model. Agreement between experiment and theory is good for stabilized material and qualitatively reasonable for pure zirconia.