Role of nickel and manganese in recovery of resistivity in iron-based alloys after low-temperature proton irradiation

Abstract

This study investigates the recovery of electric resistivity in pure iron, Fe–0.6Ni and Fe–1.5Mn as related to isochronal annealing following 1 MeV proton irradiation at lower temperature than 70 K, focusing on the relationship between solute atoms and irradiation defects. Both nickel and manganese prevent stage I_D recovery, which corresponds to correlated recombination. Stage II recovery is also changed by the addition of a solute, which corresponds to the migration of small interstitial clusters. In both pure iron and Fe–0.6Ni, no evident difference was observed in the stage III region, which corresponds to the migration of vacancies. In contrast, two substages appeared in the Fe–1.5Mn at a higher temperature than stage III_B appeared in pure iron. These substages are considered to represent the release of irradiation-induced defects, which was trapped by manganese.

Keywords:

• radiation defects ion irradiation
• recovery stages
• reactor pressure vessel

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

A part of this study was supported by the Ageing Management Infrastructure Improvement Project launched by Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Japan. This work is also supported by JSPS KAKENHI [grant number 20560771], [grant number 24860025], [grant number 25289351].