Sintered CuO pellets were irradiated at room temperature with 5-32 MeV alpha-particles. The room temperature resistivity of the irradiated samples showed about two orders of magnitude reduction compared to virgin CuO. This has been attributed to the loss of oxygen and in particular in the case of high dose (3.3 x 10(17) alpha/cm2) irradiation to a partial transformation of CuO to Cu2O, which has a resistivity of the order of what has been observed for the irradiated samples. The transformation of CuO to Cu2O has been identified by X-ray diffraction measurements. The possible mechanisms for the oxygen loss are discussed.
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