Materials and Irradiation

Contacts for the MIR topic : Frédérico Garrido, Aurélie Gentils, Stéphanie Jublot-Leclerc, Jérôme Roques

Emeritus : Brigitte Décamps, Lionel Thomé

Research activities description

The Materials and IRradiation (MIR) research topic of IJCLab is focusing on materials for energy applications (mostly nuclear energy), with a special emphasis put on the role played by ion beams, either to modify materials properties or to generate extreme irradiation conditions, for fundamental studies related to Solid State Chemistry and Physics.

A pertinent application of ion beams is the simulation of radiation effects in materials that could be placed in severe radiative environments. This topic concerns the qualification of the nuclear fuel, the matrices used for the confinement and/or transmutation of nuclear waste (fission products, actinides), and the evaluation of structural and fuel cladding materials for nuclear reactors of the next generations (Gen IV and fusion). Such experiments are based on the possibility to use ions of various masses at energies ranging from a few tens of keV up to a few hundreds of MeV, covering thus a broad stopping power range. They allow for example the simulation of radiation effects due to the uranium fission by using swift heavy ions, or the disintegration of actinides by using low energy heavy ions and MeV alpha particles, or the simulation of light gas injection in fission and fusion energy reactors. Low energy ion beams are also used for ion beam synthesis of materials: ions are incorporated into a solid matrix and a subsequent thermal annealing usually favors the out-of-equilibrium formation of nano-precipitates following the typical ion beam synthesis scheme.

For all these studies, the investigation of the fundamental mechanisms of ion-solid interactions applied to materials science is central, and it represents a vast research field in which some basic questions remain to be elucidated, in particular by coupling advanced experiments and modelling.

PhD theses in progress

  • Mathis Hitier (since Octobre 2021, NEEDS R3C funding): Impact of irradiation on the chemical durability of U1-xThxO2 and U1-xCexO2 sintered samples

Post-doctorants

  • Manoj Rajbhar (02/2024-01/2026), IN2P3 funding
  • Antoine Combrisson (06/2024-05/2026), NAAREA funding
  • Ewelina Kucal (06/2024-12/2025), ANR BENEFICIA funding

Defended PhD thesis

  • Gabriel Bouhali. Effects of ion irradiation and gas injection on the microstructural evolution of AlN, IJCLab funding, Université Paris-Saclay, 2023
  • Mohamed El-Bakouri. Approche in silico pour modéliser et caractériser les changements microstructuraux induits par irradiation dans les matériaux – Application au fer et au nickel, CNRS 80PRIME funding, Université Paris-Saclay, 2023
  • Vinicius Oliveira Cavalcanti. Accumulation of helium at oxide-iron interfaces in nuclear materials for fusion, PHENIICS doctoral school funding, Université Paris-Saclay, 2023
  • Marie-José Saleh-Afif. Formation de la phase alpha prime sous irradiation dans des aciers renforcés par dispersion d’oxydes, CEA funding, Université Paris-Saclay, 2021 
  • Dee Jay Cerico. Evolution et modélisation des dommages induits par la désintégration alpha dans l’apatite, PHENIICS doctoral school funding, Université Paris-Saclay, 2021
  • Xin Jin. Combining RBS/Channeling, X-ray diffraction and atomic-scale modelling to study irradiation-induced defects and microstructure changes, Université Paris-Saclay and Université de Limoges funding, Université de Limoges, 2021
  • Marion Bricout. Comportement du dioxyde d’uranium sous irradiation: effet couplé de l’endommagement nucléaire et des excitations électroniques, CEA funding, Université Paris-Saclay, 2020
  • Olga Emelianova. Modeling gas-driven microstructural evolution in ODS-EUROFER steel by high dose helium and hydrogen ion implantation, French Embassy at Moscow and NRNU MEPhI fundings, Joint thesis NRNU MEPhI and Université Paris-Saclay, 2020
  • Martin Owusu-Mensah. Understanding the first formation stages of (Y,Ti) nano-oxides in Oxide Dispersion Strengthened (ODS) steels, PHENIICS doctoral school funding, Université Paris-Saclay, 2019

Some recent articles

  • S. Jublot-Leclerc, G. Bouhali, C. Bachelet, F. Pallier, L. Largeau, A. Declémy, A. Gentils, Microstructural modifications induced by He implantation at elevated temperature in AlN, Journal of the European Ceramic Society 44,1116699 (2024) doi
  • Vinicius Oliveira Cavalcanti, Jérôme Roques, Denis Horlait, Eric Gilabert, Guillaume Riant, Thomas Colombeau-Bedos, Nicolas Clavier, Aurélie Gentils, Study of helium diffusion in yttria: a multiscale approach based on the density functional theory and kinetic Monte Carlo, with transmission electron microscopy and thermo-desorption spectroscopy, Journal of Nuclear Materials 597,155156 (2024) doi
  • O.V. Emelyanova, A. Gentils, V.A. Borodin, P.S. Dzhumaev, P.V. Vladimirov, R. Lindau, A. Möslang, Microstructural evolution in ODS-EUROFER steel caused by high-dose He ion implantations with systematic variation of implantation parameters, Nuclear Materials and Energy 35, 101456 (2023) doi
  • Vinicius Oliveira Cavalcanti, Jérôme Roques, Aurélie Gentils, Denis Horlait, Eric Gilabert, Laurent Tassan-Got, Understanding helium diffusion in iron: a multiscale modelling method based on the DFT and kinetic Monte Carlo, coupled to TEM and thermo-desorption spectroscopy experiments, Journal of Nuclear Materials 583, 154511 (2023) doi
  • S. Jublot-Leclerc, M. Owusu-Mensah, V.A. Borodin, J.Ribis, L. Largeau, R. Schoell, D. Kaoumi, M. Descoins, D. Mangelinck, A. Gentils, Synthesis of nano-oxide precipitates by implantation of Ti, Y and O ions in Fe-10%Cr: towards an understanding of precipitation in Oxide Dispersion Strengthened (ODS) steels, Materials 15, 4857 (2022) doi 
  • M. El-Bakouri El-Haddaji, J.‑P. Crocombette, A. Boulle, A. Chartier, A. Debelle, Basic study of the relaxation volume of crystalline defects in bcc iron, Computational Materials Science 215, 111816 (2022) doi 
  • G. Gutierrez, M. Bricout, F. Garrido, A. Debelle, L. Roux, C. Onofri, Irradiation-induced microstructural transformations in UO2 accelerated upon electronic energy deposition, Journal of the European Ceramic Society 42, 6633-6641 (2022) doi 
  • Ma, Kan and Decamps, Brigitte and Fraczkiewicz, Anna and Prima, Frederic and Loyer-Prost, Marie, Inversion of dislocation loop nature driven by cluster migration in self-ion irradiated nickel, Scripta Materialia 208, 114338 (2022) doi
  • S. Jublot-Leclerc, G. Bouhali, F. Pallier, A. Declémy, Temperature dependence of elastic strain and damage build-up in He implanted AlN, Journal of the European Ceramic Society 41 (2021) 259 doi
  • O. Emelyanova, A. Gentils, V.A. Borodin, M.G. Ganchenkova, P.V. Vladimirov, P.S. Dzhumaev, I.A. Golovchanskiy, R. Lindau, A. Möslang, Bubble-to-void transition promoted by oxide nanoparticles in ODS-EUROFER steel ion implanted to high He content, Journal of Nuclear Materials 545 (2021) 152724 doi
  • M. Bricout, C. Onofri, A. Debelle, Y. Pipon, R.C. Belin, F. Garrido, F. Leprêtre, G. Gutierrez, Radiation damage in uranium dioxide: coupled effet between electronic and nuclear energy losses, Journal of Nuclear Materials 531 (2020) 151967 doi
  • X. Jin, A. Boulle, A. Chartier, J.-P. Crocombette, A. Debelle, Analysis of strain and disordering kinetics based on combined RBS-channeling and X-ray diffraction atomic-scale modelling, Acta Materialia 201 (2020) 63 doi
  • K. Ma, B. Décamps, A. Fraczkiewicz, T. Jourdan, F. Prima, M. Loyer-Prost, Free surface impact on radiation damage in pure nickel by in situ self-ion irradiation: can it be avoided ? Acta Materialia 212 (2021) 116874 doi
  • L. Thomé, G. Gutierrez, I. Monnet, F. Garrido, A. Debelle, Ionization-induced annealing in silicon upon dual beam irradiation, Journal of Materials Science 55 (2020) 5938 doi