Interaction between disclinated non-equilibrium grain boundaries and radiation-induced interstitial/vacancy in tungsten

ZZ Zhou and HX Xie and GH Lu, NUCLEAR FUSION, 62, 126031 (2022).

DOI: 10.1088/1741-4326/ac90d6

Experimental works show that there are plenty of disclinated non- equilibrium grain boundaries (GBs) in polycrystalline materials obtained by the severe plastic deformation method. How these GBs affect the irradiation-induced defects is still an open question. In the present work, molecular dynamics simulation was used to investigate the interaction between disclinated non-equilibrium GBs and irradiation- induced interstitial/vacancy in tungsten. There exists a long-range stress field around the disclinated non-equilibrium GBs. Such a long- range stress field leads to strong interaction between interstitial/vacancy and the GB. The interaction energy calculations suggest that interstitial and vacancy can be attracted strongly by non- equilibrium GBs containing negative and positive disclinations, respectively. This unique interaction behavior is further confirmed by diffusion of interstitials/vacancies near these GBs. The present work clearly demonstrates that disclinated non-equilibrium GBs are stronger irradiation-induced defect sinks than their equilibrium counterparts. So increasing the proportion of disclinated non-equilibrium GBs may be an effective way to develop new-generation irradiation-resistant materials.

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