Molecular dynamics simulation for coalescence of vacancies in tungsten crystal

TL;DR

This study uses molecular dynamics simulations to investigate how temperature and hydrogen atoms influence vacancy coalescence in tungsten crystals, revealing that both factors facilitate the process under specific vacancy structures.

Contribution

It provides new insights into vacancy coalescence mechanisms in tungsten, highlighting the roles of temperature and hydrogen atoms across different vacancy configurations.

Findings

High temperature and hydrogen atoms promote vacancy coalescence.

Hydrogen atoms most effectively facilitate coalescence at 45-54 atoms per vacancy.

Vacancy structure influences the coalescence process.

Abstract

We performed molecular dynamics simulations of coalescence of two vacancies in a tungsten (W) crystal to elucidate the effect of temperature and hydrogen atoms. Simulations were performed for two types of vacancy structures, $\mathrm{V}_9 + \mathrm{W}_1 + \mathrm{V}_9$ and $\mathrm{V}_{10} + \mathrm{W}_4 + \mathrm{V}_{10}$ ($\mathrm{V}_{n}$ means that a vacancy corresponds to the absence of $n$ W atoms, and $\mathrm{W}_{m}$ indicates that there are $m$ W atoms between two vacancies) in various cases of temperature and hydrogen atom concentration. Under the vacancy structure $\mathrm{V}_9 + \mathrm{W}_1 + \mathrm{V}_9$, we observed vacancy coalescence for all the cases of the temperature and the number of hydrogen atoms. Evaluating the potential energy required for removing one of the W atoms between two vacancies, we found that high temperature and existing hydrogen atoms in the vacancies facilitate vacancy coalescence, and that under the structure $\mathrm{V}_{10} + \mathrm{W}_4 + \mathrm{V}_{10}$, hydrogen atoms facilitate vacancy coalescence most strongly when the number is around 45 to 54 in each vacancy.