Effects of elastic interactions on post-cascade radiation damage evolution in kinetic Monte Carlo simulations

Abstract

We describe a series of kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of post-cascade radiation damage evolution in α-iron that illustrates the part played by elastic interaction between defects. Elastic interactions are included as a bias to the diffusion of mobile point defects and defect clusters. The simulations show that recombination fractions are reduced, and vacancy clustering is enhanced. The sensitivity of these effects to temperature, cascade energy, and geometric description of vacancy clusters is also investigated.

Acknowledgements

We thank R. Stoller, G. Gilmer, and R. Rudd for the provision of resources and fruitful discussions during the course of this work. This work was supported by the UK Office of Science and Technology, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, EURATOM, the Overseas Research Students Award Scheme, and the Linacre College Applied Materials Scholarship. This work was also performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract no. W-7405-Eng-48.