On Possible Mechanism of Copper Precipitate Clustering in Model FeCu Alloys under Cascade-Damage Irradiation

E.A. Koptelov, Institute for Nuclear Research, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation 
 
We consider below kinetics of copper precipitates clustering in model FeCu alloys under cascade damage irradiation. The investigation is carried out for rather high copper content compared with the solubility limit. The nucleation and growth stage preceding the coarsening kinetics is analysed. It is assumed that thermal relaxation of atomic collision cascades creates embryos that are the growing centres during supersaturation decay. The time dependencies of copper precipitates characteristics are obtained as a solution of the Fokker-Planck equation for clusters in the space of their sizes. The results are in a qualitative agreement with some experimental data on copper clustering under fast neutron irradiation.

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