Principal Investigator Michael J Demkowicz
Stability of interface under irradiation is a crucial prerequisite for nanocomposites to be used as radiation resistant materials. For any interface, there exists radiation conditions that are severe enough to destroy the interface structure by ballistic collisions of atoms driven by energetic particles. Fortunately, there are some competing effects to the ballistic mixing such as thermally actived diffusion, to bring the system back to equilibrium. In addition, many other factors such as temperature, interface energy, grain size, and layer thickness would govern the microstructural stabililty of nanocomposites. The ultimate goal is to comprehensively understand the conditions of morphological and/or chemical stability of metal-metal interfaces under irradiation.