A “figure of merit” for susceptibility of irradiated amorphous metal alloys to thermal spike-induced plasticity

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThermal spikes in irradiated amorphous metal alloys emit stress pulses of sufficient intensity to trigger plastic deformation in adjacent unmelted material. This localized plasticity may lead to macro-scale anisotropic shape changes in metallic glasses under neutron or ion irradiation, even in the absence of external loading. We formulate a micromechanical model that connects thermal spike-induced plasticity (TSIP) to bulk properties of amorphous metal alloys. This model gives rise to a "figure of merit" (FOM) for ranking the susceptibility of metallic glasses to TSIP without recourse to further experiments or simulations. We validate the FOM against molecular dynamics simulations of TSIP in amorphous CueNb alloys.

Chemistry and interactions of silica based particles studied by liquid cell electron microscopy

“…In order to understand the underlying mechanism of silica elongation along the scanning direction, further experiments should be designed and compared with numerical simulation of the processes taking place. In the case of high energy (∼MeV), ion irradiation of silica particles with beams of charged ions such numerical investigations have already successfully performed [132,133]. For instance, using a randomly patterned electron beam where the scanning direction is not simply from left to right might result in a different type of shape deformation.…”