Molecular dynamic simulation of Cs corrosion in Cs oven for negative ion source applications

Abstract

Molecular dynamic simulation is used to simulate the corrosion process of Fe or Ni in liquid Cs by Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator. The embedded-atom method potential is used to describe the interaction of Fe–Fe, Ni–Ni, and Cs–Cs, and Morse two-body potential is used to describe the Fe–Cs and Ni–Cs atomic interaction. Temperature is considered as a critical condition in this work. Results indicate that corrosion is easy to occur in the systems. The increase in temperature can help the process of Cs corrosion. Compared to the Ni–Cs system, the Fe–Cs system has a higher atomic concentration function. The radial distribution function shows that Cs atoms are dissolved into the substrates, but the Fe and Ni substrates are still crystalline structures. Moreover, Cs in Fe or Ni is still a liquid phase.