Superheated solid state induced by a single collision event

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates through molecular dynamics simulations that a superheated solid state can be induced in BCC tungsten by a single high-energy collision, with a lifetime of up to 200 ps, expanding understanding of radiation damage effects.

Contribution

It provides the first evidence of superheated solid state formation in tungsten caused by a single collision event, using molecular dynamics simulations.

Findings

Superheated solid state observed in tungsten after single collision

Lifetime of superheated state up to 200 ps

Agreement with previous superheating models

Abstract

High-energy incident particles from both pulsed and continuous radiation sources can induce significant damage to the structure of a material by creating vacancy-interstitial pairs and other more complex defects, and this leads typically to localized melting. In this work, we present evidence via molecular dynamics simulations of a superheated solid state in BCC tungsten induced by single PKA events of $\sim$ 1.5 keV of energy. Despite the striking difference between this highly inhomogeneous energy injection and homogeneous melting, the lifetime of the obtained superheated solid state, reaching up to 200 ps, is described through a waiting time distribution in agreement with previous studies on superheating in the Z-method methodology.