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Title: Damage-tolerant nanotwinned metals with nanovoids under radiation environments

Journal Article · · Nature Communications
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8036 · OSTI ID:1215410

Material performance in extreme radiation environments is central to the design of future nuclear reactors. Radiation induces significant damage in the form of dislocation loops and voids in irradiated materials, and continuous radiation often leads to void growth and subsequent void swelling in metals with low stacking fault energy. Here we show that by using in situ heavy ion irradiation in a transmission electron microscope, pre-introduced nanovoids in nanotwinned Cu efficiently absorb radiation-induced defects accompanied by gradual elimination of nanovoids, enhancing radiation tolerance of Cu. In situ studies and atomistic simulations reveal that such remarkable self-healing capability stems from high density of coherent and incoherent twin boundaries that rapidly capture and transport point defects and dislocation loops to nanovoids, which act as storage bins for interstitial loops. This study describes a counterintuitive yet significant concept: deliberate introduction of nanovoids in conjunction with nanotwins enables unprecedented damage tolerance in metallic materials.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP) (SC-26)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357; SC0010482; AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1215410
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Vol. 6; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (22)

An all-photonic full color RGB system based on molecular photoswitches journal September 2019
Dislocation-enhanced experimental-scale vacancy loop formation in hcp Zirconium in one single collision cascade journal February 2016
Radiation-Induced Helium Bubbles in Metals journal March 2019
Dual Beam In Situ Radiation Studies of Nanocrystalline Cu journal August 2019
In-Situ Helium Implantation and TEM Investigation of Radiation Tolerance to Helium Bubble Damage in Equiaxed Nanocrystalline Tungsten and Ultrafine Tungsten-TiC Alloy journal February 2020
Atomistic Study of Interactions between Intrinsic Kink Defects and Dislocations in Twin Boundaries of Nanotwinned Copper during Nanoindentation journal January 2020
Atomistic Simulation of the Interaction Between Point Defects and Twin Boundary journal July 2018
Micro-scale modeling of interface-dominated mechanical behavior journal October 2017
In Situ Studies on the Irradiation-Induced Twin Boundary-Defect Interactions in Cu journal August 2017
A Review on the Radiation Response of Nanoporous Metallic Materials journal August 2018
Recent Studies on the Microstructural Response of Nanotwinned Metals to In Situ Heavy Ion Irradiation journal November 2019
Non-random walk diffusion enhances the sink strength of semicoherent interfaces journal January 2016
Nanotwinned and hierarchical nanotwinned metals: a review of experimental, computational and theoretical efforts journal February 2018
Hierarchical nanotwins in single-crystal-like nickel with high strength and corrosion resistance produced via a hybrid technique journal January 2020
Density functional theory calculations of generalized stacking fault energy surfaces for eight face-centered cubic transition metals journal September 2019
Molecular dynamics simulations of silicon carbide nanowires under single-ion irradiation journal September 2019
Detwinning through migration of twin boundaries in nanotwinned Cu films under in situ ion irradiation journal March 2018
Strength and plasticity of nanolaminated materials journal July 2016
Synthesis and microstructure of electrodeposited and sputtered nanotwinned face-centered-cubic metals journal April 2016
Fracture, fatigue, and creep of nanotwinned metals journal April 2016
Radiation-Induced Helium Bubbles in Metals journal March 2019
Atomistic Study of Interactions between Intrinsic Kink Defects and Dislocations in Twin Boundaries of Nanotwinned Copper during Nanoindentation journal January 2020

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