Title: Enhancing radiation tolerance by controlling defect mobility and migration pathways in multicomponent single-phase alloys

Abstract

A grand challenge in material science is to understand the correlation between intrinsic properties and defect dynamics. Radiation tolerant materials are in great demand for safe operation and advancement of nuclear and aerospace systems. Unlike traditional approaches that rely on microstructural and nanoscale features to mitigate radiation damage, this study demonstrates enhancement of radiation tolerance with the suppression of void formation by two orders magnitude at elevated temperatures in equiatomic single-phase concentrated solid solution alloys, and more importantly, reveals its controlling mechanism through a detailed analysis of the depth distribution of defect clusters and an atomistic computer simulation. The enhanced swelling resistance is attributed to the tailored interstitial defect cluster motion in the alloys from a long-range one-dimensional mode to a short-range three-dimensional mode, which leads to enhanced point defect recombination. Finally, the results suggest design criteria for next generation radiation tolerant structural alloys.

Authors:

Lu, Chenyang ^[1]; Niu, Liangliang ^[1]; Chen, Nanjun ^[1]; Jin, Ke  ^[2];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Jin, Ke"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-7697-0466"

Yang, Taini ^[1]; Xiu, Pengyuan ^[1]; Zhang, Yanwen ^[3]; Gao, Fei ^[1]; Bei, Hongbin  ^[2];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Bei, Hongbin"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-0283-7990"

Shi, Shi ^[4]; He, Mo-Rigen ^[4]; Robertson, Ian M. ^[4]; Weber, William J.  ^[3];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Weber, William J."
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-9017-7365"

Wang, Lumin ^[5]

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States). Dept. of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences
2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Materials Science and Technology Division
3. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Materials Science and Technology Division; Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
4. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States). Dept. of Engineering Physics
5. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States). Dept. of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering

Publication Date:

Thu Dec 15 00:00:00 EST 2016

Research Org.:

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States); Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Energy Dissipation to Defect Evolution (EDDE)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Contributing Org.:

Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States); Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)

OSTI Identifier:

1340468

Grant/Contract Number:  

AC05-00OR22725

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Nature Communications

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 7; Journal ID: ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:

Nature Publishing Group

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; applied physics; structural materials