Self healing of radiation-induced damage in Fe–Au and Fe–Cu alloys: Combining positron annihilation spectroscopy with TEM and ab initio calculations

Shasha Zhang*, Jakub Cizek, Zhengjun Yao, Moliar Oleksandr, Xiangshan Kong, Changsong Liu, Niels van Dijk, Sybrand van der Zwaag

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)
51 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Self healing of early stage radiation damage by site selective solute segregation is a promising approach to extend the lifetime of nuclear reactor components. In the present study, the creation and autonomous healing of irradiation-induced damage is investigated in pure Fe and high purity Fe–Au and Fe–Cu model alloys. To create radiation damage samples are irradiated at 550 °C by 120 keV He+ ions with fluences of 5.0 × 1015, 1.0 × 1016 and 5.0 × 1016 ions/cm2. The observed increase in the S and W parameters determined in the variable energy positron annihilation spectroscopy measurements indicates the formation of vacancy-like defects, precipitates and vacancy-solute complexes. The presence of substitutionally dissolved Au is found to reduce the formation of radiation defects more efficiently than solute Cu. Site-specific Au precipitation at defect sites is indicated, which results in damage healing with a reduced swelling, whereas Cu precipitates and radiation damage only show weak interaction. Ab initio calculations show that the binding energies of Au solutes to vacancy clusters (Au-Vn) are significantly larger than those of Cu solutes (Cu-Vn) whereas the binding energies of helium filled vacancy clusters Au-HenVn and Cu-HenVn are comparable.

Original languageEnglish
Article number152765
JournalJournal of Alloys and Compounds
Volume817
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

Bibliographical note

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care
Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Keywords

  • Ab initio calculations
  • Au/Cu precipitation
  • bcc Fe
  • Positron annihilation spectroscopy
  • Radiation-induced defects
  • Self-healing

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