Structure and dynamics of crowdion defects in bcc metals

Abstract

Crowdion defects are produced in body-centered-cubic metals under irradiation. Their structure and diffusive dynamics play a governing role in microstructural evolution, and hence the mechanical properties of nuclear materials. In this paper, we apply the analytical Frenkel-Kontorova model to crowdions and clusters thereof (prismatic dislocation loops) and show that the Peierls potential in which these defects diffuse is remarkably small (in the micro eV range as compared to the eV range for other defects). We also develop a coarse-grained statistical methodology for simulating these fast-diffusing objects in the context of object kinetic Monte Carlo, which is less vulnerable to the low barrier problem than naïve stochastic simulation.