Effect of defect imbalance on void swelling distributions produced in pure iron irradiated with 3.5 MeV self-ions

Abstract Ion irradiation has been widely used to simulate neutron-induced radiation damage. There are a number of features of ion-induced damage that differ from neutron-induced damage, however, and these differences require investigation before ion data can be confidently used to predict behavior arising from neutron bombardment. In this study 3.5 MeV self-ion irradiation of pure iron was used to study the influence on void swelling of the depth-dependent defect imbalance between vacancies and interstitials that arises from various surface effects, forward scattering of displaced atoms, and especially the injected interstitial effect. It was observed that the depth dependence of void swelling does not follow the behavior anticipated from the depth dependence of the damage rate. Void nucleation and growth develop first in the lower-dose, near-surface region, and then moves to progressively deeper and higher-damage depths during continued irradiation. This indicates a strong initial suppression of void nucleation in the peak damage region that is eventually overcome with continued irradiation. Using the Boltzmann transport equation method, this phenomenon is shown to be due to depth-dependent defect imbalances created under ion irradiation. These findings demonstrate that void swelling does not depend solely on the local dose level and that this sensitivity of swelling to depth must be considered in extraction and interpretation of ion-induced swelling data.