TEM Based Verification of a Computational Approach to Studying Relaxation Kinetics and Damage Accumulation Due to SHI Impact in Insulators

Abstract

An attempt was made in order to experimentally verify the accuracy of our developed combined Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics approach to describing SHI impacts in insulators. Good agreement was found between simulated structures produced by 167 MeV Xe in single crystal MgO, Al2O3 and YAG (representing non-amorphizable and amorphisable insulators) and experimental TEM images of such structures. It was found that the computational approach can successfully reproduce the observed damage morphology both in the bulk and at the irradiated surface for a variety of materials. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms responsible for the material modification is successfully captured by the model. We may therefore use the model to study the relaxation kinetics and attempt to elucidate those material properties which determine the nature of the damage produced by SHI impacts in a given material.