Effects of stacking fault energy on defect formation process in face-centered cubic metals

Abstract

To elucidate the effect of stacking fault energies (SFEs) on defect formation by the collision cascade process for face-centred cubic metals, we used six sets of interatomic potentials with different SFEs while keeping the other properties almost identical. Molecular dynamic simulations of the collision cascade were carried out using these potentials with primary knock-on atom energies (EPKA) of 10 and 20 keV at 100 K. Neither the number of residual defects nor the size distributions for both self-interstitial atom (SIA) type and vacancy type clusters were affected by the difference in the SFE. In the case of EPKA = 20 keV, the ratio of glissile SIA clusters increased as the SFE decreased, which was not expected by a prediction based on the classical dislocation theory. The trend did not change after annealing at 1100 K for 100 ps. For vacancy clusters, few stacking fault tetrahedrons (SFTs) formed before the annealing. However, lower SFEs tended to increase the SFT fraction after the annealing, where large vacancy clusters formed at considerable densities. The findings of this study can be used to characterise the defect formation process in low SFE metals such as austenitic stainless steels.