Defect structures and statistics in overlapping cascade damage in fusion-relevant bcc metals

Most experimental work on radiation damage is performed to fairly high doses, where cascade overlap effects come into play, yet atomistic simulations of the primary radiation damage have mainly been performed in initially perfect lattice. Here, we investigate the primary damage produced by energetic ion or neutron impacts in bcc Fe and W. We model irradiation effects at high fluence through atomistic simulations of cascades in pre-damaged systems. The effects of overlap provide new insights into the processes governing the formation under irradiation of extended defects. We find that cascade overlap leads to an increase in the numbers of large clusters in Fe, while in W such an effect is not seen. A significant shift in the morphology of the primary damage is also observed, including the formation of complex defect structures that have not been previously reported in the literature. These defects are highly self-immobilized, shifting the damage away from the predominance of mobile 1/2〈111〉 loops towards more immobile initial configurations. In Fe, where cascade collapse is extremely rare in molecular dynamics simulations of individual cascades, we observe the formation of vacancy-type dislocation loops from cascade collapse as a result of cascade overlap.