External stress effects on radiation damage dynamics

Abstract

External uniaxial stress effects on the radiation damage dynamics in a a-Fe b.c.c. structure are studied by means of the computer simulation method. Focused collision chains, defocused ones, and atom-atom collision cascades were simulated. The external uniaxial stresses affect the intervals between a vacancy and an interstitial atom produced due to a collision chain, i.e. changes a dynamical crowdion path. The external stresses change the number of stable point defects and their arrangement in the cascade development region if an atom-atom collision cascade develops in a stressed crystal. The studies of focused collision chains of energies close to the atom displacement threshold energies show that the latter can either increase or decrease due to the external stresses depending on the direction of the effect.