Displacement rate and temperature equivalence in stochastic cluster dynamics simulations of irradiated pure α-Fe

Abstract Charged particle irradiation is a frequently used experimental tool to study damage accumulation in metals expected during neutron irradiation. Understanding the correspondence between displacement rate and temperature during such studies is one of several factors that must be taken into account in order to design experiments that produce equivalent damage accumulation to neutron damage conditions. In this study, spatially resolved stochastic cluster dynamics (SRSCD) is used to simulate damage evolution in α -Fe and find displacement rate/temperature pairs under ‘target’ and ‘proxy’ conditions for which the local distribution of vacancies and vacancy clusters is the same as a function of displacement damage. The SRSCD methodology is chosen for this study due to its computational efficiency and ability to simulate damage accumulation in spatially inhomogeneous materials such as thin films. Results are presented for Frenkel pair irradiation and displacement cascade damage in thin films and bulk α -Fe. Holding all other material and irradiation conditions constant, temperature adjustments are shown to successfully make up for changes in displacement rate such that defect concentrations and cluster sizes remain relatively constant. The methodology presented in this study allows for a first-order prediction of the temperature at which ion irradiation experiments (‘proxy’ conditions) should take place in order to approximate neutron irradiation (‘target’ conditions).