No Arabic abstract
Density functional theory predicts clusters in the form of the C15 Laves phase to be the most stable cluster of self-interstitials in iron at small sizes. The C15 clusters can form as a result of irradiation, but their prevalence and survival in harsh irradiation conditions have not been thoroughly studied. Using a new bond-order potential optimised for molecular dynamics simulations of radiation damage, we explore the dynamical stability of the C15 clusters in iron under irradiation conditions. We find that small C15 clusters make up 5-20% of the interstitial clusters formed directly in cascades. In continuous irradiation, C15 clusters are frequently formed, after which they remain highly stable and grow by absorbing nearby single interstitial atoms. Growth of C15 clusters ultimately leads to collapse into dislocation loops, most frequently into 1/2<111> loops and only rarely collapsing into <100> loops at low temperatures. The population, size, and collapse of C15 clusters during continuous irradiation correlates well with their formation energies relative to dislocation loops calculated at zero Kelvin.
Electronic effects are believed to be important in high--energy radiation damage processes where high electronic temperature is expected, yet their effects are not currently understood. Here, we perform molecular dynamics simulations of high-energy collision cascades in $alpha$-iron using the coupled two-temperature molecular dynamics (2T-MD) model that incorporates both effects of electronic stopping and electron-ion interaction. We subsequently compare it with the model employing the electronic stopping only, and find several interesting novel insights. The 2T-MD results in both decreased damage production in the thermal spike and faster relaxation of the damage at short times. Notably, the 2T-MD model gives a similar amount of the final damage at longer times, which we interpret to be the result of two competing effects: smaller amount of short-time damage and shorter time available for damage recovery.
A complete knowledge of absolute surface energies with any arbitrary crystal orientation is important for the improvements of semiconductor devices because it determines the equilibrium and nonequilibrium crystal shapes of thin films and nanostructures. It is also crucial in the control of thin film crystal growth and surface effect studies in broad research fields. However, obtaining accurate absolute formation energies is still a huge challenge for the semi-polar surfaces of compound semiconductors. It mainly results from the asymmetry nature of crystal structures and the complicated step morphologies and related reconstructions of these surface configurations. Here we propose a general approach to calculate the absolute formation energies of wurtzite semi-polar surfaces by first-principles calculations, taking GaN as an example. We mainly focused on two commonly seen sets of semi-polar surfaces: a-family (11-2X) and m-family (10-1X). For all the semi-polar surfaces that we have calculated in this paper, the self-consistent accuracy is within 1.5 meV/{AA}^2. Our work fills the last technical gap to fully investigate and understand the shape and morphology of compound semiconductors.
Understanding and predicting a materials 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.
Radiation damage in body-centered cubic (BCC) Fe has been extensively studied by computer simulations to quantify effects of temperature, impinging particle energy, and the presence of extrinsic particles. However, limited investigation has been conducted into the effects of mechanical stresses and strain. In a reactor environment, structural materials are often mechanically strained, and an expanded understanding of how this strain affects the generation of defects may be important for predicting microstructural evolution and damage accumulation under such conditions. In this study, we have performed molecular dynamics simulations in which various types of homogeneous strains are applied to BCC Fe and the effect on defect generation is examined. It is found that volume-conserving shear strains yield no statistically significant variations in the stable number of defects created via cascades in BCC Fe. However, strains that result in volume changes are found to produce significant effects on defect generation.
THz magnetization dynamics is excited in ferrimagnetic thulium iron garnet with a picosecond, single-cycle magnetic field pulse and seen as a high-frequency modulation of the magneto-optical Faraday effect. Data analysis combined with numerical modelling and evaluation of the effective Lagrangian allow us to conclude that the dynamics corresponds to the exchange mode excited by Zeeman interaction of the THz field with the antiferromagnetically coupled spins. We argue that THz-pump IR-probe experiments on ferrimagnets offer a unique tool for quantitative studies of dynamics and mechanisms to control antiferromagnetically coupled spins.