Topic:
Scientific Achievement
Overlapping high energy irradiation events result in local heating of the lattice and annealing of defects created from previous events and defects due to the current event, suppressing the accumulation of displaced atoms and the formation of large vacancy clusters.
Significance and Impact
These insights into the early stages of damage production and cluster formation in radiation environments reveal local heating and local defect annealing due electron-phonon interactions.
Research Details
- Atomistic simulations of overlapping irradiation events in nickel were performed.
- Local heating due to overlapping irradiation events enhances recombination of displaced atoms locally.
- Due to electronic energy loss, the vacancy cluster size is dramatically suppressed by the local energy exchange between the lattice and the electrons.
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