A grand challenge in materials research is to understand complex electronic correlation and non-equilibrium atomic interactions, and how such intrinsic properties and dynamic processes affect energy transfer and defect evolution in irradiated materials. Here we report that chemical disorder, with an increasing number of principal elements and/or altered concentrations of specific elements, in single-phase concentrated solid solution alloys can lead to substantial reduction in electron mean free path and orders of magnitude decrease in electrical and thermal conductivity. The subsequently slow energy dissipation affects defect dynamics at the early stages, and consequentially may result in less deleterious defects. Suppressed damage accumulation with increasing chemical disorder from pure nickel to binary and to more complex quaternary solid solutions is observed. Understanding and controlling energy dissipation and defect dynamics by altering alloy complexity may pave the way for new design principles of radiation-tolerant structural alloys for energy applications.
Atomistic simulations of alloys at the empirical level face the challenge of correctly modeling basic thermodynamic properties. In this Letter we propose a methodology to generalize many-body classic potentials to incorporate complex formation energy curves. Application to Fe-Cr allows us to correctly predict the order vs segregation tendency in this alloy, as observed experimentally and calculated with ab initio techniques, providing in this way a potential suitable for radiation damage studies.
Short-range order (SRO) in Fe-rich Fe-Cr alloys is investigated by means of atomistic off-lattice Monte Carlo simulations in the semi-grand canonical ensemble using classical interatomic potentials. The SRO parameter defined by Cowley [Phys. Rev. B 77, 669 (1950)] is used to quantify the degree of ordering. In agreement with experiments a strong ordering tendency in the Cr distribution at low Cr concentrations ( 5%) is observed, as manifested in negative values of the SRO parameters. For intermediate Cr concentrations (5% cCr 15%) the SRO parameter for the α-phase goes through a minimum, but at the solubility limit the α-phase still displays a rather strong SRO. In thermodynamic equilibrium for concentrations within the two-phase region the SRO parameter measured over the entire sample therefore comprises the contributions from both the α and α ′ -phases. If both of these contributions are taken into account, it is possible to quantitatively reproduce the experimental results and interpret their physical implications. It is thereby shown that the inversion of the SRO observed experimentally is due to the formation of stable (supercritical) α ′ -precipitates. It is not related to the loss of SRO in the α-phase or to the presence of unstable (subcritical) Cr precipitates in the α-phase.
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