Publications Details

The Energetics of He Bubble Nucleation

Winter, Ian S.; Zhou, Xiaowang; Rothchild, Eric; Chandross, Michael E.

In this project we considered the initial stages of helium bubble nucleation via the proposed mechanism of self-interstitial atom nucleation. By calculating the energy barrier to self-interstitial atom nucleation in a range of Fe-Ni-Cr alloys we identified the most important energetic contributions to the phenomenon: the Frenkel-pair energy barrier in the absence of helium and the difference of insertion energy for a He cluster into a perfect lattice and vacancy. From this observation, we developed a simple model of helium-assisted self-interstitial atom nucleation.