Atomistic simulation of energetic displacement cascades near an Ni-graphene interface

Ni-graphene nanocomposites have greatly promising applications in supercritical water-cooled reactors due to their outstanding performances. However, many fundamental mechanisms of irradiation behaviors in the composites are still unclear. Here we investigate the displacement cascades near an Ni-graphene interface using atomistic simulations. Different cascade energies and ambient temperatures were introduced to bring out the effect of irradiation. The increasing cascade energy in the interval 0.5-10 keV could significantly promote the formation of defects, while there is slight effect on the number of surviving defects in Ni matrix when adjusting the ambient temperature from 100 K to 900 K. The damaged graphene could be self-healing by the synergistic effects of irradiation annealing and ambient temperature annealing. The interface exhibits high sink efficiency for irradiation defects in all cases. This study provides an important insight into the understanding of the microscopic evolution of defects in cascades for the composites.