Atomistic simulations of the radiation resistance of oxides

Fluorite compounds such as urania and ceria, or related compounds such as pyrochlores and also spinels show different behaviors under irradiations, which ranges from perfect radiation resistance to crystalline phase change or even complete amorphization depending on their structure and/or their composition. Displacement cascades – dedicated to the understanding of the ballistic regime and performed by empirical potentials molecular dynamics simulations – have revealed that the remaining damages of the above mentioned oxides are reduced to point defects unlike what is observed in zircon and zirconolite, which directly amorphize during the cascade. The variable behavior of these point defects is the key of the various responses of these materials to irradiations. This behavior can be investigated by two specific molecular dynamics methodologies that will be reviewed here: (i) the method of point defects accumulation as a function of temperature that gives access to the dose effects and to the critical doses for amorphization; (ii) the study Frenkel pairs life-time – i.e. their time of recombination as function of temperature – that may be used as a tool to understand the results obtained in displacements cascades or to identify the microscopic mechanisms responsible for the amorphization/re-crystallization during the point defects accumulations.