Decoding the interstitial/vacancy nature of dislocation loops with their morphological fingerprints in face-centered cubic structure

Kan Ma; Long Guo; Antoine Dartois; Estelle Meslin; Colin Ophus; Brigitte Décamps; Anna Fraczkiewicz; Alexander J. Knowles; Lumin Wang; Olivier Tissot; Frédéric Prima; Fei Gao; Huiqiu Deng; Marie Loyer-Prost

doi:10.1126/sciadv.adq4070

Decoding the interstitial/vacancy nature of dislocation loops with their morphological fingerprints in face-centered cubic structure

Kan Ma^* (Co-first Author)
, Long Guo (Co-first Author)
, Antoine Dartois
, Estelle Meslin
, Colin Ophus
, Brigitte Décamps
, Anna Fraczkiewicz
, Alexander J. Knowles
, Lumin Wang
, Olivier Tissot
, Frédéric Prima
, Fei Gao
, Huiqiu Deng^*
, Marie Loyer-Prost^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

145 Downloads (CityUHK Scholars)

Abstract

Dislocation loops are critical defects inducing detrimental effects like embrittlement and swelling in materials under irradiation. Distinguishing their nature (interstitial- or vacancy-type) is a long-standing challenge with great implications for understanding radiation damage. Here, we demonstrate that the morphology of radiation-induced Frank loops can unveil their nature in face-centered cubic (fcc) structure: Circular loops are interstitial-type in all fcc materials, while segmented loops are vacancy-type in high stacking fault energy (SFE) alloys but varied-type in low SFE and high-entropy alloys. The polygonal shape is attributed to the dissociation of an a₀/3<111> dislocation into an a₀/6<112> Shockley partial and an a₀/6<110> stair-rod dislocation. The dissociation of vacancy loops is energetically favorable, whereas interstitial loops require external stimuli to promote dislocation propagation. This “morphology-nature” correlation not only highlights the asymmetry of vacancy/ interstitial loops but also offers an efficient way to distinguish loop nature for a wide range of materials. Copyright © 2025 The Authors, some rights reserved.

Original language	English
Article number	eadq4070
Journal	Science Advances
Volume	11
Issue number	15
Online published	11 Apr 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adq4070
Publication status	Published - Apr 2025

Funding

Ion beam irradiations were performed at the IJCLab facility: JANNuSSCALP (IJCLabUniv Paris-Sud/CNRS, Orsay, France) and at the JANNuS-Saclay platform at CEA Saclay. The support of facility teams is gratefully acknowledged. Electron irradiation was performed at HVEM facility at CEA Saclay. K.M., M.L.-P., and O.T. thank the technical support of T. Vandenberghe on the HVEM experiment. K.M. and C.O. acknowledge the support of K. Bustillo and S. Ribet on the 4D-STEM experiment. Inset figures in Fig. 3 reprinted from (11\u201313, 31\u201336, 78). See Fig. 3 caption for more details. the NEEDS program (CNRS-CEA-EDF-ANDRA-AREVA-IRSN-BRGM) and the RMATE project (CEA). Irradiation was also supported by the EMIR&A French accelerator network. Work at the Molecular Foundry was supported by the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the US Department of Energy under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231 (to A.J.K., K.M., and C.O.). A.J.K. acknowledges the support from UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (MR/T019174/1) and RAEng Research Fellowship (RF\\201819\\18\\158).

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Ma, K., Guo, L., Dartois, A., Meslin, E., Ophus, C., Décamps, B., Fraczkiewicz, A., Knowles, A. J., Wang, L., Tissot, O., Prima, F., Gao, F., Deng, H., & Loyer-Prost, M. (2025). Decoding the interstitial/vacancy nature of dislocation loops with their morphological fingerprints in face-centered cubic structure. Science Advances, 11(15), Article eadq4070. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adq4070

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title = "Decoding the interstitial/vacancy nature of dislocation loops with their morphological fingerprints in face-centered cubic structure",

abstract = "Dislocation loops are critical defects inducing detrimental effects like embrittlement and swelling in materials under irradiation. Distinguishing their nature (interstitial- or vacancy-type) is a long-standing challenge with great implications for understanding radiation damage. Here, we demonstrate that the morphology of radiation-induced Frank loops can unveil their nature in face-centered cubic (fcc) structure: Circular loops are interstitial-type in all fcc materials, while segmented loops are vacancy-type in high stacking fault energy (SFE) alloys but varied-type in low SFE and high-entropy alloys. The polygonal shape is attributed to the dissociation of an a0/3<111> dislocation into an a0/6<112> Shockley partial and an a0/6<110> stair-rod dislocation. The dissociation of vacancy loops is energetically favorable, whereas interstitial loops require external stimuli to promote dislocation propagation. This “morphology-nature” correlation not only highlights the asymmetry of vacancy/ interstitial loops but also offers an efficient way to distinguish loop nature for a wide range of materials. Copyright {\textcopyright} 2025 The Authors, some rights reserved.",

author = "Kan Ma and Long Guo and Antoine Dartois and Estelle Meslin and Colin Ophus and Brigitte D{\'e}camps and Anna Fraczkiewicz and Knowles, \{Alexander J.\} and Lumin Wang and Olivier Tissot and Fr{\'e}d{\'e}ric Prima and Fei Gao and Huiqiu Deng and Marie Loyer-Prost",

year = "2025",

month = apr,

doi = "10.1126/sciadv.adq4070",

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Ma, K, Guo, L, Dartois, A, Meslin, E, Ophus, C, Décamps, B, Fraczkiewicz, A, Knowles, AJ, Wang, L, Tissot, O, Prima, F, Gao, F, Deng, H & Loyer-Prost, M 2025, 'Decoding the interstitial/vacancy nature of dislocation loops with their morphological fingerprints in face-centered cubic structure', Science Advances, vol. 11, no. 15, eadq4070. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adq4070

Decoding the interstitial/vacancy nature of dislocation loops with their morphological fingerprints in face-centered cubic structure. / Ma, Kan (Co-first Author); Guo, Long (Co-first Author); Dartois, Antoine et al.
In: Science Advances, Vol. 11, No. 15, eadq4070, 04.2025.

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

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T1 - Decoding the interstitial/vacancy nature of dislocation loops with their morphological fingerprints in face-centered cubic structure

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AU - Guo, Long

AU - Dartois, Antoine

AU - Meslin, Estelle

AU - Ophus, Colin

AU - Décamps, Brigitte

AU - Fraczkiewicz, Anna

AU - Knowles, Alexander J.

AU - Wang, Lumin

AU - Tissot, Olivier

AU - Prima, Frédéric

AU - Gao, Fei

AU - Deng, Huiqiu

AU - Loyer-Prost, Marie

PY - 2025/4

Y1 - 2025/4

N2 - Dislocation loops are critical defects inducing detrimental effects like embrittlement and swelling in materials under irradiation. Distinguishing their nature (interstitial- or vacancy-type) is a long-standing challenge with great implications for understanding radiation damage. Here, we demonstrate that the morphology of radiation-induced Frank loops can unveil their nature in face-centered cubic (fcc) structure: Circular loops are interstitial-type in all fcc materials, while segmented loops are vacancy-type in high stacking fault energy (SFE) alloys but varied-type in low SFE and high-entropy alloys. The polygonal shape is attributed to the dissociation of an a0/3<111> dislocation into an a0/6<112> Shockley partial and an a0/6<110> stair-rod dislocation. The dissociation of vacancy loops is energetically favorable, whereas interstitial loops require external stimuli to promote dislocation propagation. This “morphology-nature” correlation not only highlights the asymmetry of vacancy/ interstitial loops but also offers an efficient way to distinguish loop nature for a wide range of materials. Copyright © 2025 The Authors, some rights reserved.

AB - Dislocation loops are critical defects inducing detrimental effects like embrittlement and swelling in materials under irradiation. Distinguishing their nature (interstitial- or vacancy-type) is a long-standing challenge with great implications for understanding radiation damage. Here, we demonstrate that the morphology of radiation-induced Frank loops can unveil their nature in face-centered cubic (fcc) structure: Circular loops are interstitial-type in all fcc materials, while segmented loops are vacancy-type in high stacking fault energy (SFE) alloys but varied-type in low SFE and high-entropy alloys. The polygonal shape is attributed to the dissociation of an a0/3<111> dislocation into an a0/6<112> Shockley partial and an a0/6<110> stair-rod dislocation. The dissociation of vacancy loops is energetically favorable, whereas interstitial loops require external stimuli to promote dislocation propagation. This “morphology-nature” correlation not only highlights the asymmetry of vacancy/ interstitial loops but also offers an efficient way to distinguish loop nature for a wide range of materials. Copyright © 2025 The Authors, some rights reserved.

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DO - 10.1126/sciadv.adq4070

M3 - RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal

C2 - 40215304

SN - 2375-2548

VL - 11

JO - Science Advances

JF - Science Advances

IS - 15

M1 - eadq4070

ER -

Decoding the interstitial/vacancy nature of dislocation loops with their morphological fingerprints in face-centered cubic structure

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