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Fusion energy: Progress, partnerships, and the path to deployment
Over the past decade, fusion energy has moved decisively from scientific aspiration toward a credible pathway to a new energy technology. Thanks to long-term federal support, we have significantly advanced our fundamental understanding of plasma physics—the behavior of the superheated gases at the heart of fusion devices. This knowledge will enable the creation and control of fusion fuel under conditions required for future power plants. Our progress is exemplified by breakthroughs at the National Ignition Facility and the Joint European Torus.
Fei Gao, Ram Devanathan, William J. Weber
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 39 | Number 2 | March 2001 | Pages 574-578
Fusion Materials | doi.org/10.13182/FST01-A11963298
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The primary damage by displacement cascades in 3C-SiC at 300 K has been studied by molecular dynamics (MD). A large number of cascades, with energies from 0.2 to 50 keV, have been simulated in order to investigate the effects of energy in defect production and clustering. The surviving defects are dominated by C interstitials and vacancies. The number of Frenkel pairs increases with increasing cascade energy, but the efficiency of their production declines with increasing energy in a similar fashion to that found in metals. Although the number of antisite defects is smaller than that of Frenkel pairs, their production also increases with increasing cascade energy. Most surviving defects are single interstitials and vacancies, and the tendency of interstitials to form clusters is very week. The size of the interstitial clusters is very small, which shows significantly different behavior than obtained by MD simulations in metals. The current results provide the statistics of the primary damage states in SiC as a function of primary knock-on energy, which are important in upscaling these results to model behavior over longer time and length scales.