Interactions between displacement cascades and grain boundaries in NiFe single-phase concentrated solid solution alloys

Abstract

Single-phase concentrated solid solution alloys (SP-CSAs) are promising structural materials with excellent irradiation resistance. It is very important for their application in nuclear reactor structures to understand the interactions between their grain boundaries (GBs) and irradiation-induced defects. With molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, the displacement cascades in NiFe SP-CSAs with Σ5(210) symmetrical tilt GB were studied. Compared with pure Ni, NiFe has higher sink strength of GB for vacancies but has little effect on the interstitial absorption of GB. The formation energies of interstitials and vacancies near the GB are more dispersed, so that the point defects are more difficult to aggregate, which is beneficial for the recombination of interstitials and vacancies near the GB. Both the formation energies of point defects and the sink strengths of GB for point defects could be changed with the SP-CSA compositions. When the Fe atom concentration is higher than 30 at.%, the point defects are easier to annihilate. Both the effects of the PKA energy and the PKA-GB distance on the displacement cascades damage can be explained with the size of overlapping region between the cascade region and GB. In addition, the formation of SP-CSAs helps to annihilate the vacancies in NiFe with Σ37(750) symmetrical tilt GB and Σ5 twist GB.