Collision cascades overlapping with selfinterstitial defect clusters in Fe and W

Jesper Byggmäster (1) , Frederic Granberg (1) , Andreea E Sand (1) , Alexander Pirttikoski (1) , Rebecca Alexander (2) , Mihai Cosmin Marinica (3) , Kai Nordlund (1)

1 Department of Physics [Helsinki]
2 UMET - Unité Matériaux et Transformations - UMR 8207
3 SRMP - Service de recherches de métallurgie physique

Overlap of collision cascades with previously formed defect clusters become increasingly likely at radiation doses typical for materials in nuclear reactors. Using molecular dynamics, we systematically investigate the effects of different pre-existing self-interstitial clusters on the damage produced by an overlapping cascade in bcc iron and tungsten. We find that the number of new Frenkel pairs created in direct overlap with an interstitial cluster is reduced to essentially zero, when the size of the defect cluster is comparable to that of the disordered cascade volume. We develop an analytical model for this reduced defect production as a function of the spatial overlap between a cascade and a defect cluster of a given size. Furthermore, we discuss cascade-induced changes in the morphology of self-interstitial clusters, including transformations between 1/2 <111> and <100> dislocation loops in iron and tungsten, and between C15 clusters and dislocation loops in iron. Our results provide crucial new cascade-overlap effects to be taken into account in multi-scale modelling of radiation damage in bcc metals.

Keywords: cascade overlap; iron; tungsten; molecular dynamics; dislocation loop

Domains: Material chemistry

Jesper Byggmäster, Frederic Granberg, Andreea E Sand, Alexander Pirttikoski, Rebecca Alexander, et al.. Collision cascades overlapping with selfinterstitial defect clusters in Fe and W. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 2019, 31 (24), pp.245402. ⟨10.1088/1361-648X/ab0682⟩. ⟨cea-03851951⟩