It was recalled that, according to the production-bias model, glissile defect clusters and small dislocation loops played an important role in microstructure evolution during irradiation under cascade damage conditions. Atomic-scale computer simulations had answered many questions concerning the structure and properties of glissile clusters of self-interstitial atoms that formed directly in the cascade volume. It was found that such clusters consisted of sets of crowdions, and were highly mobile in the crowdion direction. One-dimensional glide of a similar type had recently been observed during the computer simulation of small vacancy loops in α-Fe. Results which had been obtained via the molecular dynamics simulation of defect clusters and small dislocation loops in α-Fe and Cu were described here. The structures and stability of vacancy and interstitial loops were reviewed, and the dynamics of glissile clusters were assessed. It was concluded that these results were of importance with regard to the establishment of a better understanding of observed differences in the damage accumulation behaviours of body-centered cubic and face-centered cubic metals, when irradiated under cascade damage conditions.

Stability and Mobility of Defect Clusters and Dislocation Loops in Metals. Y.N.Osetsky, D.J.Bacon, A.Serra, B.N.Singh, S.I.Golubov: Journal of Nuclear Materials, 2000, 276, 65-77