Behaviour of P, Si, Ni impurities and Cr in self ion irradiated Fe–Cr alloys – Comparison to neutron irradiation

This paper presents an atom probe tomography study of phase transformation and solute segregation in Fe–Cr alloys of low purity under self-ion irradiation. Fe–9%Cr and Fe–12%Cr were irradiated at 100 °C, 300 °C and 420 °C at a dose of 0.5 dpa. Homogeneously distributed clusters enriched in Cr, P, Si and Ni are shown to form at 300 °C and 420 °C but not at 100 °C. Study of the evolution of the segregation intensities of Cr, Si and P in the clusters with temperature under ion irradiation indicates that they form by a radiation induced mechanism. No α′ clusters were observed whatever the irradiation temperature whereas they were observed in the same alloys after neutron irradiation at 300 °C at 0.6 dpa. Comparison of the solute cluster composition after ion irradiation and neutron irradiation, suggests that P atoms could play an important role in the appearance of the solute clusters by stabilizing point defect clusters that could later be enriched in Ni, Si and Cr