Radiation Response of Amorphous Alloys

Amorphous alloys lack the long-range translational periodicity characteristic of traditional engineering materials, presenting the intriguing possibility that amorphous alloys may not possess conventional point defects. Because point defects are the root cause of irradiation-induced degradation in traditional structural materials, amorphous alloys may respond to radiation in fundamentally different ways than crystalline alloys.

We are seeking to elucidate the atomic scale damage mechanisms in amorphous alloys through molecular dynamics simulations of irradiation of two model systems: CuxNb1-x and CuxZr1-x. Knowledge of defect kinetics will enable development of continuum models for comparison with experimental results.