Cascade size effects on phase stability under irradiation: A stochastic description

Cascade size may affect phase stability under irradiation because of two distinct contributions: the replacement to displacement cross-section ratio depends on the deposited energy density; ballistic jumps which tend to disorder ordered compounds occur by bursts, while thermal jumps which restore long range order occur one by one. The latter effect cannot be handled by standard rate theory. A stochastic treatment of the problem, based on a Fokker Planck approximation of the relevant master equation is summarized. It is shown that the possible values of the long range order parameter under irradiation are not affected by the size of the cascade but that the respective stability of the former is cascade size sensitive. As a consequence, the stability diagram of phases under irradiation varies with the size of the cascades. A numerical example of this is given for the B2 structure.