On the mobility of defect clusters and their effect on microstructure evolution in fcc Ni under irradiation

Y. N. Osetsky, A. V. Barashev, Y. Zhang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

µs-scale molecular dynamics studies of vacancy and interstitial clusters in fcc Ni revealed three- and one- dimensional (3-D and 1-D) modes of the cluster motion. The 1-D mobility of interstitial defects is known to enhance swelling rate. The theoretical analysis performed here suggests two novel mechanism by which the 3-D mobile clusters affect microstructure evolution under irradiation. First, the mobility of vacancy clusters hinders nucleation of stable voids due to recombination with interstitial-type loops and edge dislocations. Second, the capture efficiency of dislocations is higher for 3-D mobile vacancy and interstitial clusters than single defects, with the combined effect depending on relative fractions of clustered vacancies and interstitials produced in cascades. The observed differences in radiation damage of most fcc and bcc metals is attributed to the difference in cascade-produced vacancy defects: immobile SFTs and loops in fcc metals and mobile clusters in bcc metals. In this context, fcc Ni is similar to bcc metals due to its high stacking fault energy.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)139-146
Number of pages8
JournalMaterialia
Volume4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2018

Funding

This work was supported as part of the Energy Dissipation to Defect Evolution (EDDE), an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences.

Keywords

  • Diffusion
  • Interstitials
  • Irradiation effects
  • Molecular dynamics
  • Ni
  • Vacancies

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