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Irradiation-induced defect clustering and amorphization in silicon carbide

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

William J. Weber*
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996; and Materials Science & Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831
Fei Gao
Affiliation:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99352
*
a)Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected] This author was an editor of this journal during the review and decision stage. For the JMR policy on review and publication of manuscripts authored by editors, please refer to http://www.mrs.org/jmr_policy
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Abstract

Previous computer simulations of multiple 10 keV Si cascades in 3C–SiC demonstrated that many damage-state properties exhibit relatively smooth, but noticeably different, dose dependencies. A more recent analysis of these damage-state properties, which includes additional data at low and intermediate doses, reveals more complex relationships between system energy, swelling, energy per defect, relative disorder, elastic modulus, and elastic constant, C11. These relationships provide evidence for the onset of both defect clustering and solid-state amorphization, which appear to be driven by local energy and elastic instabilities from the accumulation of defects. The results provide guidance on experimental approaches to reveal the onset of these processes.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2010

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