The nature of high-energy radiation damage in iron: Modeling results

TL;DR

This paper uses molecular dynamics simulations to analyze high-energy radiation damage in iron, revealing continuous collision cascades and novel defect clusters, which inform models of material behavior under radiation.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the structure and morphology of radiation-induced damage in iron at high energies, highlighting the transition to continuous cascades and defect clustering.

Findings

Collision cascades become more continuous at high energies

Large defect clusters and small vacancy/interstitial clusters are observed

Results inform physical models of radiation damage in structural materials

Abstract

Understanding and predicting a material's performance in response to high-energy radiation damage, as well as designing future materials to be used in intense radiation environments, requires the knowledge of the structure, morphology and amount of radiation-induced structural change. We report the results of molecular dynamics simulations of high-energy radiation damage in iron in the range 0.2-0.5 MeV. We analyze and quantify the nature of collision cascades both at the global and local scale. We find that the structure of high-energy collision cascades becomes increasingly continuous as opposed to showing sub-cascade branching reported previously. At the local length scale, we find large defect clusters and novel small vacancy and interstitial clusters. These features form the basis for physical models aimed at understanding the effects of high energy radiation damage in structural materials.