Creeping Motion of Self Interstitial Atom Clusters in Tungsten

The formation and motion features of self interstitial atom (SIA) clusters in tungsten are studied by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The static calculations show that the SIA clusters are stable with binding energy over 2 eV. The SIA clusters exhibit a fast one dimensional (1D) motion along 〈111〉. Through analysis of the change of relative distance between SIAs, we find that SIAs jump in small displacements we call creeping motion, which is a new collective diffusion process different from that of iron. The potential energy surface of SIAs implicates that the creeping motion is due to the strong interaction between SIAs. These imply that several diffusion mechanism for SIA clusters can operate in BCC metals and could help us explore deep insight into the performance of materials under irradiation.