Abstract
The redistribution of vacancies in the depleted zone of a displacement cascade in copper has been investigated by MD simulations. A simplified model of the thermal spike was used, for which the calculation cell was cooled down along one axis after vacancies and kinetic energy had been introduced in the centre of it. The simulation of electron-phonon coupling (EPC) on the sweeping of vacancies in this hot liquid core as it cools shows that with strong coupling, the highly-disordered structure can be frozen in when a depleted zone with a high initial concentration of vacancies solidifies. These simulations and previous work on density redistribution in molten cascade cores [V.G. Kapinos, D.J. Bacon, Philos. Mag. A 68 (1993) 1165] have been used to develop a model of vacancy loop nucleation in Cu, Ni and their alloys, and it is found that EPC can have a strong influence on loop yield, in good agreement with experiment.
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