Structural, mechanical and magnetic properties studies on high-energy Kr-ion irradiated Fe3O4 material (main corrosion layer of Fe-based alloys)

Abstract The Fe-based (T91 and RAFM) alloys are considered as the promising candidate structural materials for DEMO and the first fusion power plant, and these two kinds of steels suffered more serious corrosion attack at 450 °C in liquid PbBi metal. So in order to further clarify the applicability of Fe-based structural materials in nuclear facilities, we should study not only the alloys itself but also its corrosion layers; and in order to simplify the discussion and clarify the irradiation effects of the different corrosion layer, we abstract the Fe3O4 (main corrosion layer of Fe-based alloys) to study the structural, micro-mechanical and magnetic properties under 2.03 GeV Kr-ion irradiation. The initial crystallographic structure of the Fe3O4 remains unaffected after irradiation at low damage levels, but as the Kr-ion fluence increases and the defects accumulate, the macroscopic magnetic properties (Ms, Hc, etc.) and micro-mechanical properties (nano-hardness and Young’s modulus) are sensitive to high-energy Kr-ion irradiation and exhibit excruciating uniform changing regularities with varying fluences (firstly increases, then decreases). And these magnetism, hardening and softening phenomena can be interpreted very well by the effects related to the stress and defects (the production, accumulation and free) induced by high-energy ions irradiation.