Enrique Martinez

In our previous work, we have demonstrated using nonequilibrium molecular-dynamics simulations that the fluxes of helium and self-interstitial atoms in the presence of a thermal gradient in tungsten are directed opposite to the heat flux, indicating that species transport is governed by a Soret effect, namely, thermal-gradient-driven diffusion, characterized by a negative heat of transport that drives species transport uphill, i.e. from the cooler to the hot regions of the tungsten sample. In this work, the findings of our thermal and species transport analysis have been implemented in our cluster-dynamics code, Xolotl, which has been used to compute temperature and species profiles over spatiotemporal scales representative of plasma-facing component (PFC) tungsten under typical reactor operating conditions, including extreme heat loads at the plasma-facing surface characteristic of plasma instabilities that induce edge localized modes (ELMs). We demonstrate that the steady-state species profiles, when properly accounting for the Soret effect, vary significantly from those where temperature-gradient-driven transport is not accounted for and discuss the implications of such a Soret effect on the response to plasma exposure of plasma-facing tungsten. Although our cluster-dynamics simulations do not yet include self-clustering of helium or hydrogen blister formation, our simulation results show that the Soret effect substantially reduces helium and hydrogenic species retention inside PFC tungsten.

First-wall materials in a fusion reactor are expected to withstand harsh conditions, with high heat and particle fluxes that modify the materials microstructure. These fluxes will create strong gradients of temperature and concentration of diverse species. Besides the He ash and the hydrogenic species, neutron particles generated in the fusion reaction will collide with the material creating intrinsic defects, such as vacancies, self-interstitials atoms (SIAs), and clusters of such point defects. These defects and the He atoms will then migrate in the presence of the aforementioned gradients. In this study, we use nonequilibrium molecular dynamics to analyze the transport of He and SIAs in the presence of a thermal gradient in tungsten. We observe that, in all cases, the defects and impurity atoms tend to migrate toward the hot regions of the tungsten sample. The resulting species concentration profiles are exponential distributions, rising toward the hot regions of the sample, in agreement with irreversible thermodynamics analysis. For both He atoms and SIAs, we find that the resulting species flux is directed opposite to the heat flux, indicating that species transport is governed by a Soret effect (thermal-gradient-driven diffusion) characterized by a negative heat of transport that drives species diffusion uphill (from the cooler to the hot regions of the sample). We demonstrate that the steady-state species profiles obtained accounting for the Soret effect vary significantly from those where temperature-gradient-driven transport is not considered and discuss the implications of such a Soret effect on the response to plasma exposure of plasma-facing tungsten.

In this study, radiation-induced precipitation of transmutation products is addressed via the development of a new solute and vacancy concentration dependant Ising model for the W–Re–Os system. This new model includes interactions between both Os and Re atoms with vacancies, thus facilitating more representative simulations of transmutation in fusion reactor components. Local solute concentration dependencies are introduced for the W–Re, W–Os and Re–Os pair interactions. The model correctly accounts for the repulsion between small clusters of vacancies and the attraction between larger clusters/voids, via the introduction of local vacancy concentration dependant interaction coefficients between pairs of atoms and vacancies. To parameterise the pair interactions between atoms and/or vacancies, the enthalpy of mixing, ΔH _mix, for various configurations and solute/defect concentrations, was calculated using density functional theory, within 6 binary systems: W–Re, W–Os, Re–Os, W–vacancy, Re–vacancy and Os–vacancy. The new energy model was implemented into the SPPARKS Monte Carlo code, and successfully used to predict the formation of voids decorated with Re and Os solute atoms. Analysis suggests that there is a strong thermodynamic tendency for Os to bind to these voids with a comparatively weaker binding from Re atoms. The binding energies of various solute/vacancy clusters were calculated and showed that Re and Os solute atoms tend to stabilise small clusters of vacancies, increasing the attractive binding energy between the constituents.

The study of the long-term evolution of slow chemical reactions is challenging because quantum-based reactive molecular dynamics simulation times are typically limited to hundreds of picoseconds. Here, the extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics formalism is used in conjunction with parallel replica dynamics to obtain an accurate tool to describe the long-term chemical dynamics of shock-compressed benzene. Langevin dynamics has been employed at different temperatures to calculate the first reaction times in liquid benzene at pressures and temperatures consistent with its unreacted Hugoniot. Our coupled engine runs for times on the order of nanoseconds (one to two orders of magnitude longer than traditional techniques) and is capable of detecting reactions that are characterized by rates significantly slower than we could study before. At lower pressures and temperatures, we mainly observe Diels-Alder metastable reactions, whereas at higher pressures and temperatures we observe stable polymerization reactions.

Nanostructured ferritic alloys are considered as candidates for structural components in advanced nuclear reactors due to a high density of nano-oxides (NOs) and ultrafine grain sizes. However, bimodal grain size distribution results in inhomogeneous NO distribution, or vice versa. Here, we report that density of NOs in small grains (<0.5 µm) is high while there are almost no NOs inside the large grains (>2 µm) before and after irradiation. After 6 dpa neutron irradiation at 385–430 °C, α′ precipitation has been observed in these alloys; however, their size and number densities vary considerably in small and large grains. In this study, we have investigated the precipitation kinetics of α′ particles based on the sink density, using both transmission electron microscopy and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. It has been found that in the presence of a low sink density, α′ particles form and grow faster due to the existence of a larger defect density in the matrix. On the other hand, while α′ particles form far away from the sink interface when the sink size is small, Cr starts to segregate at the sink interface with the increase in the sink size. Additionally, grain boundary characteristics are found to determine the radiation-induced segregation of Cr.

We probe shock-induced chemistry in two organic liquids by measuring broadband, midinfrared absorption in the 800–1400 cm−1 frequency range. To test this new method and understand the signatures of chemical reactions in time resolved vibrational spectra, we compared liquid benzene shocked to unreactive conditions (shocked to a pressure of 18 GPa for a duration of 300 ps) to nitromethane under reactive conditions (25 GPa). We see clear signatures of shock-induced chemistry that are distinguishable from the pressure- and temperature-induced changes in vibrational mode shapes. While shocked benzene shows primarily a broadening and shifting of the vibrational modes, the nitromethane vibrational modes vanish once the shock wave enters the liquid and simultaneously, a spectrally broad feature appears that we interpret as the infrared spectrum of the complex mixture of product and intermediate species. To further interpret these measurements, we compare them to reactive quantum molecular dynamics simulations, which gives qualitatively consistent results. This work demonstrates a promising method for time resolving shock-induced chemistry, illustrating that chemical reactions produce distinct changes in the vibrational spectra.

Understanding the effect of dislocations on the mass transport in ionic ceramics is important for understanding the behavior of these materials in a variety of contexts. In particular, the dissociated nature of vacancies at screw dislocations, or more generally, at a wide range of low-angle twist grain-boundaries, has ramifications for the mechanism of defect migration and thus mass transport at these microstructural features. In this paper, a systematic study of the dissociated vacancies at screw dislocations in MgO is carried out. The important role of stress migration in the atomistic modeling study is identified. Another aspect of the current work is a rigorous treatment of the linear elasticity model. As a result, good agreement between the atomistic modeling results and the linear elasticity model is obtained. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the proposed vacancy dissociation mechanism can also be extended to more complicated ionic ceramics such as UO₂, highlighting the generality of the mechanism.

Extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics is developed and analyzed for applications in canonical (NVT) simulations. Three different approaches are considered: the Nosé and Andersen thermostats and Langevin dynamics. We have tested the temperature distribution under different conditions of self-consistent field (SCF) convergence and time step and compared the results to analytical predictions. We find that the simulations based on the extended Lagrangian Born-Oppenheimer framework provide accurate canonical distributions even under approximate SCF convergence, often requiring only a single diagonalization per time step, whereas regular Born-Oppenheimer formulations exhibit unphysical fluctuations unless a sufficiently high degree of convergence is reached at each time step. The thermostated extended Lagrangian framework thus offers an accurate approach to sample processes in the canonical ensemble at a fraction of the computational cost of regular Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulations.

Stacking fault tetrahedra (SFTs) are ubiquitous defects in face-centered cubic metals. They are produced during cold work plastic deformation, quenching experiments or under irradiation. From a dislocation point of view, the SFTs are comprised of a set of stair-rod dislocations at the (110) edges of a tetrahedron bounding triangular stacking faults. These defects are extremely stable, increasing their energetic stability as they grow in size. At the sizes visible within transmission electron microscope they appear nearly immobile. Contrary to common belief, we show in this report, using a combination of molecular dynamics and temperature accelerated dynamics, how small SFTs can diffuse by temporarily disrupting their structure through activated thermal events. More over, we demonstrate that the diffusivity of defective SFTs is several orders of magnitude higher than perfect SFTs and can be even higher than isolated vacancies. Finally, we show how SFTs can coalesce, forming a larger defect in what is a new mechanism for the growth of these omnipresent defects.

Nanocrystalline materials have received great attention due to their potential for improved functionality and have been proposed for extreme environments where the interfaces are expected to promote radiation tolerance. However, the precise role of the interfaces in modifying defect behavior is unclear. Using long-time simulations methods, we determine the mobility of defects and defect clusters at grain boundaries in Cu. We find that mobilities vary significantly with boundary structure and cluster size, with larger clusters exhibiting reduced mobility and that interface sink efficiency depends on the kinetics of defects within the interface via the in-boundary annihilation rate of defects. Thus, sink efficiency is a strong function of defect mobility, which depends on boundary structure, a property that evolves with time. Further, defect mobility at boundaries can be slower than in the bulk, which has general implications for the properties of polycrystalline materials. Finally, we correlate defect energetics with the volumes of atomic sites at the boundary.

It has recently been shown that due to a high surface-to-volume ratio, nanoporous materials display radiation tolerance. The abundance of surfaces, which are perfect sinks for defects, and the relation between ligament size, defect diffusion, and time combine to define a window of radiation resistance [Fu et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 191607 (2012)]. Outside this window, the dominant defect created by irradiation in Au nanofoams are stacking fault tetrahedra (SFT). Molecular dynamics computer simulations of nanopillars, taken as the elemental constituent of foams, predict that SFTs act as dislocation sources inducing softening, in contrast to the usual behavior in bulk materials, where defects are obstacles to dislocation motion, producing hardening. In this work we test that prediction and answer the question whether irradiation actually hardens or softens a nanofam. Ne ion irradiations of gold nanofoams were performed at room temperature for a total dose up to 4 dpa, and their mechanical behavior was measured by nanoindentation. We find that hardness increases after irradiation, a result that we analyze in terms of the role of SFTs on the deformation mode of foams.

It was recently proposed that within a particular window in the parameter space of temperature, ion energy, dose rate, and filament diameter, nanoscale metallic foams could show radiation tolerance [Bringa et al., Nano Lett. 12, 3351 (2012)]. Outside this window, damage appears in the form of vacancy-related stacking fault tetrahedra (SFT), with no effects due to interstitials [Fu et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 191607 (2012)]. These SFT could be natural sources of dislocations within the ligaments composing the foam and determine their mechanical response. We employ molecular dynamics simulations of cylindrical ligaments containing an SFT to obtain an atomic-level picture of their deformation behavior under compression. We find that plastic deformation originates at the edges of the SFT, at lower stress than needed to create dislocations at the surface. Our results predict that nanoscale foams soften under irradiation, a prediction not yet tested experimentally.