Effect of Helium on Stabilizing Vacancy Configuration in Delta-Plutonium

Abstract

The radioactive decay of Pu produces He atom, which may form cluster with vacancies or accumulate into He bubble, thus resulting in physical, chemical and mechanical changes. In this paper first principle evaluations of Pu lattice defected with mono-vacancy (or di-vacancy) and He atoms have been performed using the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) of the density functional theory and Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) exchange-correlation functional. The simulation results indicate that the density of states (DOSs) of Pu lattices seem stable when He/V (V represents vacancy) ratio is between 2:1-3:1, the partial DOSs of s, d and f states shift in the orientation of positive X axis, while f state peaks disappear around the Fermi level. Total energy per Pu atom in Pu lattice with mono-vacancy (or di-vacancy) and He atoms relative to total energy per Pu atom in perfect fcc Pu lattice nearly remains constant (about 8.18a.u.).