EURECA (European Underground Rare Event Calorimeter Array) is an astro-particle physics facility aiming to directly detect galactic dark matter. The Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane has been selected as host laboratory. The EURECA collaboration unites CRESST, EDELWEISS and the Spanish-French experiment ROSEBUD, thus concentrating and focussing effort on cryogenic detector research in Europe into a single facility. EURECA will use a target mass of up to one ton, enough to explore WIMP – nucleon scalar scattering cross sections in the region of 10-9 – 10-10 picobarn. A major advantage of EURECA is the planned use of more than just one target material (multi target experiment for WIMP identification).

Zirconolite-rich ceramics were produced by the cold crucible meltingtechnique in an air atmosphere, at 1550±50 °C and 1 atm. Four samples withoverall composition (in wt.%): 4.9–14.3 CaO; 19.0–41.3 ZrO2;24.1–42.6 TiO2; 1.3–11.3 Al2O3; 6.8–30.0 Gd2O3, and 1.1–8.5 SiO2 have beenstudied. Total phases in the ceramics consist of major zirconolite and minorrutile, perovskite, zirconia, aluminium titanate, and glass. The Gd2O3 content in zirconolite reaches up to 31.4wt.% corresponding to the formula: (Cao4,Gd0.7)Zri.0(Tii4,Alo 5)070. Thedata on the phase composition agree well with coupled Gd incorporation intothe mineral structure. Ca(H) + Ti(IV) = Gd(III) + Al(III), and 2Gd(III) -Ca(II) + Zr(IV). The highest Gd contents observed in the other phases are25.4 % for zirconia, 12.6 % in glass, 8.8 % in perovskite, and 1.4 % forrutile. The rest of the elements' distribution in the samples areanalyzed.