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Title: Visualization of ultrafast melting initiated from radiation-driven defects in solids

Abstract

Materials exposed to extreme radiation environments such as fusion reactors or deep spaces accumulate substantial defect populations that alter their properties and subsequently the melting behavior. The quantitative characterization requires visualization with femtosecond temporal resolution on the atomic-scale length through measurements of the pair correlation function. Here, we demonstrate experimentally that electron diffraction at relativistic energies opens a new approach for studies of melting kinetics. Our measurements in radiation-damaged tungsten show that the tungsten target subjected to 10 displacements per atom of damage undergoes a melting transition below the melting temperature. Two-temperature molecular dynamics simulations reveal the crucial role of defect clusters, particularly nanovoids, in driving the ultrafast melting process observed on the time scale of less than 10 ps. These results provide new atomic-level insights into the ultrafast melting processes of materials in extreme environments.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
  2. Lancaster Univ., Lancaster (United Kingdom)
  3. Imperial College London, London (United Kingdom); Univ. Paris Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France)
  4. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States); Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
OSTI Identifier:
1532401
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1532727
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-19-23684
Journal ID: ISSN 2375-2548
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-76SF00515; EP/R006288/1; EP/R0029431; FWP #100182; 89233218CNA000001
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Science Advances
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 5; Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 2375-2548
Publisher:
AAAS
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; Material Science

Citation Formats

Mo, Mianzhen, Murphy, Samuel, Chen, Zhijiang, Fossati, Paul, Li, Renkai, Wang, Yongqiang, Wang, Xijie, and Glenzer, Siegfried. Visualization of ultrafast melting initiated from radiation-driven defects in solids. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaw0392.
Mo, Mianzhen, Murphy, Samuel, Chen, Zhijiang, Fossati, Paul, Li, Renkai, Wang, Yongqiang, Wang, Xijie, & Glenzer, Siegfried. Visualization of ultrafast melting initiated from radiation-driven defects in solids. United States. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw0392
Mo, Mianzhen, Murphy, Samuel, Chen, Zhijiang, Fossati, Paul, Li, Renkai, Wang, Yongqiang, Wang, Xijie, and Glenzer, Siegfried. Fri . "Visualization of ultrafast melting initiated from radiation-driven defects in solids". United States. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw0392. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1532401.
@article{osti_1532401,
title = {Visualization of ultrafast melting initiated from radiation-driven defects in solids},
author = {Mo, Mianzhen and Murphy, Samuel and Chen, Zhijiang and Fossati, Paul and Li, Renkai and Wang, Yongqiang and Wang, Xijie and Glenzer, Siegfried},
abstractNote = {Materials exposed to extreme radiation environments such as fusion reactors or deep spaces accumulate substantial defect populations that alter their properties and subsequently the melting behavior. The quantitative characterization requires visualization with femtosecond temporal resolution on the atomic-scale length through measurements of the pair correlation function. Here, we demonstrate experimentally that electron diffraction at relativistic energies opens a new approach for studies of melting kinetics. Our measurements in radiation-damaged tungsten show that the tungsten target subjected to 10 displacements per atom of damage undergoes a melting transition below the melting temperature. Two-temperature molecular dynamics simulations reveal the crucial role of defect clusters, particularly nanovoids, in driving the ultrafast melting process observed on the time scale of less than 10 ps. These results provide new atomic-level insights into the ultrafast melting processes of materials in extreme environments.},
doi = {10.1126/sciadv.aaw0392},
journal = {Science Advances},
number = 5,
volume = 5,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {5}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
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Cited by: 13 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: Schematic of the experimental setup. The W targets were pumped by 130-fs and 400-nm laser pulses and probed by UED at megaelectronvolt energies. Radiation damage to the targets at different defect densities was prepared before the pump-probe experiments. The displayed diffraction pattern is the typical fourshot average patternmore » of the unpumped pristine W target.« less

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Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.