Self-organization of Cu-based immiscible alloys under irradiation: an atom-probe tomography study

The stability of materials subjected to prolonged irradiation has been a topic of renewed interest in recent years due to the projected growth of nuclear power as an alternative energy source. The irradiating particles impart energy into the material, thereby causing atomic displacements to occur. These displacements result in the creation of point defects and the random ballistic mixing of the atoms. Consequently, the material is driven away from its equilibrium structure. The supersaturation of defects can lead to the degradation of mechanical properties, but a high density of internal interfaces, which act as defect sinks, will suppress the supersaturation and long-range transport of defects. The microstructural evolution of the material is controlled by the ballistic mixing as well as the mobility of the point defects. In immiscible alloys, these two processes compete against one another, as the ballistic mixing acts to solutionize the alloy components, and the thermal diffusion of the large number of defects acts to phase separate the components. The work presented in this dissertation examines the effect of heavy-ion irradiation on immiscible, binary Cu-based alloys. Dilute alloys of Cu-Fe, Cu-V, and V-Cu have been subjected to irradiation, and atom-probe tomography has been utilized in order to better understand the complex nature of the response of these simple model systems to an irradiation environment. The results show that a steady-state, nano-scale patterning structure, with a high density of unsaturable defect sinks, can be maintained under prolonged irradiation. Additionally, precipitation from a supersaturated solid solution is shown to be a function of both the thermal diffusion and the ballistic mixing. Solvent-rich secondary precipitates, termed “cherry-pits,” are observed inside of the solute-rich primary precipitates. Through a combination of simulation work and analyzing multiple alloys experimentally, it was determined that this cherry-pit behavior can be controlled based on the interaction of the atoms within the phases of one another