Atomistic simulation of structural damage during ion irradiation of iron single crystals

Abstract

The evolution of atomic displacement cascades initiated near free surfaces with different crystallographic orientations in bcc iron specimens was studied on the base of the molecular dynamics approach. The craters surrounded by adatom mounds were formed in the case of the (111) surface irradiation. The dislocation loops consisted of vacancies were generated after the (110) surface irradiation. The dislocation Burgers vector was a/2 <111> or a <100>. It was shown that the type of structural damage is determined by the anisotropy of propagation of shock waves generated by atomic displacement cascades. For energies of the atomic displacement cascade lower than 20 keV the number of adatoms and survived point defects was higher for specimen with the (110) free surface due to the different character of surface damage. The increase in the cascade energy up to 20 keV results in formation of almost the equal number of survived point defects for the (110) and (111) free surfaces as displacement cascades were developed on larger distance from the irradiated surfaces.