Primary recoil spectra and subcascade effects in ion bombardment experiments

Abstract

The motivation of this work is to compare atomic damage configurations associated with neutron and fast-ion damage. The question we set out to answer was: Which choice of ion mass and kinetic energy provides the best simulation of fast neutron damage? The answer which emerges is that the primary damage state, i.e. the statistical distribution of free defects, and subcascade regions before annealing, is remarkably independent of the ion species and its PKA spectrum. This conclusion is sufficiently surprising to warrant careful examination, and is presented together with a variety of qualifications.