Thermal and Radiation Stability in Nanocrystalline Cu

Marie Thomas; Heather Salvador; Trevor Clark; Eric Lang; Khalid Hattar; Suveen Mathaudhu

doi:10.3390/nano13071211

Thermal and Radiation Stability in Nanocrystalline Cu

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2023 Mar 29;13(7):1211. doi: 10.3390/nano13071211.

Authors

Marie Thomas¹, Heather Salvador², Trevor Clark^{3

4}, Eric Lang^{4

5}, Khalid Hattar^{4

6}, Suveen Mathaudhu^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA.
² Mechanical Engineering Department, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.
³ Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.
⁴ Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM 87185, USA.
⁵ Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA.
⁶ Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.

Abstract

Nanocrystalline metals have presented intriguing possibilities for use in radiation environments due to their high grain boundary volume, serving as enhanced irradiation-induced defect sinks. Their promise has been lessened due to the propensity for nanocrystalline metals to suffer deleterious grain growth from combinations of irradiation and/or elevated homologous temperature. While approaches for stabilizing such materials against grain growth are the subject of current research, there is still a lack of central knowledge on the irradiation-grain boundary interactions in pure metals despite many studies on the same. Due to the breadth of available reports, we have critically reviewed studies on irradiation and thermal stability in pure, nanocrystalline copper (Cu) as a model FCC material, and on a few dilute Cu-based alloys. Our study has shown that, viewed collectively, there are large differences in interpretation of irradiation-grain boundary interactions, primarily due to a wide range of irradiation environments and variability in materials processing. We discuss the sources of these differences and analyses herein. Then, with the goal of gaining a more overarching mechanistic understanding of grain size stability in pure materials under irradiation, we provide several key recommendations for making meaningful evaluations across materials with different processing and under variable irradiation conditions.

Keywords: copper; irradiation; nanocrystalline; stability.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

Data collection and aggregation by H.S., T.C. and S.M. were funded in part by Sandia National Laboratories’ laboratory directed research and development (LDRD) program. H.S. was additionally supported by the U.S. Department of Education’s Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) Fellowship. M.T. literature review and writing, and S.M. project management and manuscript review were carried out under the support of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering Division under Award No. DE-SC0022980. K.H. time was supported by the DOE-BES Materials Science and Engineering Division under FWP 15013170. This work was performed, in part, at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, an Office of Science User Facility operated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA-0003525. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. DOE or the United States Government.