Electronic effects on radiation damage inα-iron:A molecular dynamics study

Iron(Fe)-based alloys,which have been widely used as structural materials in nuclear reactors,can significantly change their microstructure properties and macroscopic properties under high flux neutron irradiation during operation,thus,the problems associated with the safe operation of nuclear reactors have been put forward naturally.In this work,a molecular dynamics simulation approach combined with electronic effects is developed for investigating the primary radiation damage process inα-Fe.Specifically,the influence of electronic effects on the collision cascade in Fe is systematically evaluated based on two commonly used interatomic potentials for Fe.The simulation results reveal that both electronic stopping(ES)and electron-phonon coupling(EPC)can contribute to the decrease of the number of defects in the thermal spike phase.The application of ES reduces the number of residual defects after the cascade evolution,whereas EPC has a reverse effect.The introduction of electronic effects promotes the formation of the dispersive subcascade:ES significantly changes the geometry of the damaged region in the thermal spike phase,whereas EPC mainly reduces the extent of the damaged region.Furthermore,the incorporation of electronic effects effectively mitigates discrepancies in simulation outcomes when using different interatomic potentials.

Molecular dynamics study of primary radiation damage in TiVTa concentrated solid-solution alloy

The primary radiation damage in pure V and TiVTa concentrated solid-solution alloy(CSA)was studied using a molecular dynamics method.We have performed displacement cascade simulations to explore the generation and evolution behavior of irradiation defects.The results demonstrate that the defect accumulation and agglomeration in TiVTa CSA are significantly suppressed compared to pure V.The peak value of Frenkel pairs during cascade collisions in TiVTa CSA is much higher than that in pure V due to the lower formation energy of point defects.Meanwhile,the longer lifetime of the thermal spike relaxation and slow energy dissipation capability of TiVTa CSA can facilitate the recombination of point defects.The defect agglomeration rate in TiVTa CSA is much lower due to the lower binding energy of interstitial clusters and reduced interstitial diffusivity.Furthermore,the occurrence probability of dislocation loops in TiVTa CSA is lower than that in pure V.The reduction in primary radiation damage may enhance the radiation resistance of TiVTa CSA,and the improved radiation tolerance is primarily attributed to the relaxation stage and long-term defect evolution rather than the ballistic stage.These results can provide fundamental insights into irradiation-induced defects evolution in refractory CSAs.

Vertical nanowires enhanced X-ray radiation damage of cells

Cell behavior is affected by nanostructured surface,but it remains unknown how ionizing radiation af-fects cells on nanostructured surface.This paper reports an experimental investigation of X-ray radiation induced damage of cells placed on an array of vertically aligned silicon nanowires.X-ray photoelectrons and secondary electrons produced from nanowire array are measured and compared to those from flat silicon substrate.The cell functions including morphology,viability,adhesion and proliferation have been examined and found to be drastically affected when cells are exposed to X-ray radiation,compared to those sitting on flat substrate and those only exposed to X-ray.The enhanced cell damage on nanowires upon X-ray exposure is attributed to nanowire enhanced production of photoelectrons including Auger electrons and secondary electrons,which have high escaping probability from sharp tips of nanowires.The escaped photoelectrons ionize water molecules and generate hydroxyl free radicals that can damage DNAs of cells.An inference of this work is that the contrast in scanning electron microscopy is useful in assessing the effects of nanomaterials for enhanced X-ray radiation therapy.

Typical Cell Signaling Response to Ionizing Radiation: DNA Damage and Extranuclear Damage

To treat many types of cancer, ionizing radiation （IR） is primarily used as external-beam radiotherapy, brachytherapy, and targeted radionuclide therapy. Exposure of tumor cells to JR can induce DNA damage as well as generation of reactive oxygen species （ROS） and reactive nitrogen species （RNS） which can cause non-DNA lesions or extracellular damage like lipid perioxidation. The initial radiation-induced cell responses to DNA damage and ROS like the proteolytic processing, as well as synthesis and releasing ligands （such as growth factors, cytokines, and hormone） can cause the delayed secondary responses in irradiated and unirradiated bystander cells through paracrine and autocrine pathways.

Three-dimensional conformal intensity-modulated radiation therapy of left femur foci does not damage the sciatic nerve

During radiotherapy to kill femoral hydatid tapeworms, the sciatic nerve surrounding the focus can be easily damaged by the treatment. Thus, it is very important to evaluate the effects of ra- diotherapy on the surrounding nervous tissue. In the present study, we used three-dimensional, conformal, intensity-modulated radiation therapy to treat bilateral femoral hydatid disease in Meriones meridiani. The focus of the hydatid disease on the left femur was subiected to radio- therapy （40 Gy） for 14 days, and the right femur received sham irradiation. Hematoxylin-eosin staining, electron microscopy, and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-dUTP nick end labeling assays on the left femurs showed that the left sciatic nerve cell structure was normal, with no ob- vious apoptosis after radiation. Trypan blue staining demonstrated that the overall protoscolex structure in bone parasitized with Echinococcus granulosus disappeared in the left femur of the animals after treatment. The mortality of the protoscolex was higher in the left side than in the right side. The succinate dehydrogenase activity in the protoscolex in bone parasitized with Echi- nococcus granulosus was lower in the left femur than in the right femur. These results suggest that three-dimensional conformal intensity-modulated radiation therapy achieves good therapeutic effects on the secondary bone in hydatid disease in Meriones meridiani without damaging the morphology or function of the sciatic nerve.

Incident particle range dependence of radiation damage in a power bipolar junction transistor

The characteristic degradations in silicon NPN bipolar junction transistors（BJTs） of type 3DD155 are examined under the irradiations of 25-MeV carbon（C）,40-MeV silicon（Si）,and 40-MeV chlorine（Cl） ions respectively.Different electrical parameters are measured in-situ during the exposure of heavy ions.The experimental data shows that the changes in the reciprocal of the gain variation（（1/β）） of 3DD155 transistors irradiated respectively by 25-MeV C,40-MeV Si,and 40-MeV Cl ions each present a nonlinear behaviour at a low fluence and a linear response at a high fluence.The（1/β） of 3DD155 BJT irradiated by 25-MeV C ions is greatest at a given fluence,a little smaller when the device is irradiated by 40-MeV Si ions,and smallest in the case of the 40-MeV Cl ions irradiation.The measured and calculated results clearly show that the range of heavy ions in the base region of BJT affects the level of radiation damage.

Damage evolution law of coal-rock under uniaxial compression based on the electromagnetic radiation characteristics

Based on electromagnetic radiation characteristics, the present research studied the damage evolution of rock under uniaxial compression. Besides, this research built the coal-rock damage evolution model considered residual strength. The applicability and accuracy of the model were verified through experiments. The results show that coal-rock damage evolution consists of four periods. The first period is from the beginning of compression to nearly 20% of the stress peak value, during which the damage variable changes stably about 0.1, and accordingly a few of electromagnetic radiation signals emerge. The second period is from about 20% to 70% of the stress peak value. The damage has stable development, and the parameter of electromagnetic radiation characteristics turns larger continuously with the increase of stress. The third period is when the damage has accelerated development, the coal-rock was broken which result from sharp increasing of the damage variable, meanwhile a great quantity of electromagnetic radiation signals emerge. The fourth period is after the coal-rock fracture, during which the damage variable corresponding to the parameter of electromagnetic radiation characteristics has a stable development. This research has great academic and realistic significance for further studies the electromagnetic radiation characteristics of coal-rock under loading and damage and the forecasting of coal-rock dynamic disasters.

Assessment of Radiation Damage to the Structural Material of EAST Tokamak

Radiation damage to structural material of fusion facilities is of high concern for safety. The superconducting tokamak EAST will conduct D-D plasma experiments with the neutron production of 10^15 neutrons per second. To evaluate the material radiation damage a programme system has been devised with the Monte Carlo transport code MCNP-4C, the inventory code FISPACT99, a specific interface, and the fusion evaluated nuclear data library FENDL-2. The key nuclear responses, i.e. fast neutron flux, displacement per atom, and the helium and hydrogen production, are calculated for the structural material SS-316L of the first wall, and the vacuum vessel, using this programme. The results demonstrate that the radiation damage to the structural material is so little that it will not lead to any significant change of material properties according to the reference design. This indicates that there is a large potential space for EAST to test advanced operation regime from the viewpoint of structural material safety.

Corneal damage effects induced by infrared optical parametric oscillator radiation at 3743 nm

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the corneal damage effects induced by mid-infrared optical parametric oscillator(OPO)radiation.Experiments were performed to determine the corneal damage thresholds of New Zealand white rabbit at the wavelength of 3743 nm for ex-posurédurations of 0.1 s,1.0 s and 10.0 s.Through slit-lamp biomicroscope and histopathology,corneal injury characteristics were revealed.The damage thresholds were 3.73 J/cm^(2),7.91 J/cm^(2)and 31.1 J/cm^(2),respectively,for exposure durations of 0.1 s,1.0 s and 10.0 s.The damage data was correlated by an empirical equation:Radiant exposure at the threshold=9.72×exposure duration,^(0.46)where the units of radiant exposure and exposure duration were J/cm^(2)and second.At near-threshold level,corneal injuries at 1 h post-exposure mainly involved the epithelium,and the epithelium damages repaired at 24-h post-exposure.There are sufficient safety margins be-tween the damage thresholds and the maximum permitted exposures from current international laser safety standard IEC 60825-1.

An investigation of ionizing radiation damage in different SiGe processes

Different SiGe processes and device designs are the critical influences of ionizing radiation damage. Based on the different ionizing radiation damage in SiGe HBTs fabricated by Huajie and an IBM SiGe process, quantitatively numerical simulation of ionizing radiation damage was carried out to explicate the distribution of radiation-induced charges buildup in KT9041 and IBM SiGe HBTs. The sensitive areas of the EB-spacer and isolation oxide of KT9041 are much larger than those of the IBM SiGe HBT, and the distribution of charge buildup in KT9041 is several orders of magnitude greater than that of the IBM SiGe HBT. The result suggests that the simulations are consistent with the experiment, and indicates that the geometry of the EB-spacer, the area of the Si/SiO2 interface and the isolation structure could be contributing to the different ionizing radiation damage.

Variation of Radiation Damage with Irradiation Temperature and Dose in CLAM Steel

The dependences of radiation induced defects on irradiation temperature up to 700℃ at 15 dpa and on irradiation dose up to 85 dpa at room temperature have been investigated by the heavy ion irradiation and the positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy for the CLAM. A void size peak is observed at -500℃ where the vacancy cluster contains 9 vacancies and has an average diameter of 0.59 nm. The size of the vacancy clusters increases with the increase of irradiation dose at room temperature, and the vacancy cluster at 85 dpa consists of 9 vacancies and reaches a size of 0.60 nm in diameter. The absolute values of the void size at the peak and the increase of void size with dose in the CLAM steel are negligible compared to those of the normal stainless steels, indicating that the CLAM steel has good radiation resistant property.

Radiation Damage Analysis of Individual Subcells for GaInP/GaAs/Ge Solar Cells Using Photoluminescence Measurements

The radiation damage of three individual subcells for GalnP/GaAs//Ge triple-junction solar cells irradiated with electrons and protons is investigated using photoluminescence （PL） measurements. The PL spectra of each subcell are obtained using different excitation lasers. The PL intensity has a fast degradation after irradiation, and decreases as the displacement damage dose increases. Furthermore, the normalized PL intensity varying with the displacement damage dose is analyzed in detail, and then the lifetime damage coefficients of the recombination centers for GaInP top-cell, GaAs mid-cell and Ge bottom-cell of the triple-junction solar cells are determined from the PL radiative efficiency.

Bulk and surface damages in complementary bipolar junction transistors produced by high dose irradiation

Two complementary types NPN and PNP of bipolar junction transistors （BJTs） were exposed to higll dose of neutrons and gamma rays. The change in the base and collector currents, minority carriers lifetime, and current gain factor/3 with respect to the dose were analyzed. The contributions of the base current according to the defect types were also reported. It was declared that the radiation effect of neutrons was almost similar between the two transistor types, this effect at high dose may decrease the value of/3 to less than one. The Messenger-Spratt equation was used to describe the experimental results in this case. However, the experimental data demonstrated that the effect of gamma rays was generally higher on NPN than PNP transistors. This is mainly attributed to the difference in the behavior of the trapped positive charges in the SiO2 layers. Meanwhile, this difference tends to be small for high gamma dose.

IMPROVEMENT ON FATIGUE LIFE OF ALLOY LY12CZ AFTER LASER RADIATION AND ITS DAMAGE EVOLUTION

The change of microstructure of fatigue specimens before and after laser radiation was studied by transmission electron microscopy.The results show that the diameter of dislocation cell λ tends to a constant at fatigue failure.Based on the principles of continuous damage mechanics,expressions of the fatigue damage criterion and processes of fatigue damage evolu- tion for L Y12CZ have been derived.

Damage and recovery of fiber Bragg grating under radiation environment

To develop the application of fiber Bragg gratings as temperature and strain sensors in space environments, it is necessary to understand the effect of high-energy radiation on the performance of the fiber Bragg grating. We performed an experiment involving Co（60）-γ ionizing irradiation with a total dose of 1.01 × 10~6 rad on two Ge-doped single-mode fiber Bragg gratings with central wavelengths of 825 and 835 nm, respectively. We found that, with the increase of radiation dose, the redshift of the peak wavelength of the reflection spectrum of the fiber Bragg gratings indicated the increase of the refractive index and the number of color centers. After irradiation, the refractive index decreased with the decreasing number of color centers. We analyzed the influence of ionizing irradiation on the transmission performance of the fiber Bragg gratings using a color-center model, which explained the experimental results. The proposed model was used to determine the creation rate and annihilation rates of the color center, which are foundational data for using the fiber Bragg gratings in space applications.

Surface Etching and DNA Damage Induced by Low-Energy Ion Irradiation in Yeast

Bio-effects of survival and etching damage on cell surface and DNA strand breaks were investigated in the yeast saccharomyces cerevisiae after exposure by nitrogen ion with an energy below 40 keV. The result showed that 16% of trehalose provided definite protection for cells against vacuum stress compared with glycerol. In contrast to vacuum control, significant morpho- logical damage and DNA strand breaks were observed, in yeast cells bombarded with low-energy nitrogen, by scanning electron microscopy （SEM） and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase- mediated dUTP nick end labeling （TUNEL） immunofluorescence assays. Moreover, PI （propidium iodide） fluorescent staining indicated that cell integrity could be destroyed by ion irradiation. Cell damage eventually affected cell viability and free radicals were involved in cell damage as shown by DMSO （dimethyl sulfoxide） rescue experiment. Our primary experiments demonstrated that yeast cells can be used as an optional experimental model to study the biological effects of low energy ions and be applied to further investigate the mechanism（s） underlying the bio-effects of eukaryotic cells.

A Monte Carlo Simulation of Radiation Damage of SiC and Nb Using JA-IPU Code

MC （Monte Carlo） simulation code, JA-IPU is used to study radiation damage of SiC irradiated to spallation neutron and AmBe neutron spectra. The code is based on the major physical processes of radiation damage on incorporation of atomic collision cascade and limited to 10 MeV neutron energy. A phenomenological relation for radiation swelling is also derived. Based on the calculation of swelling, DPA （displacement per atom）, defect production efficiency and effective threshold energy, Efff from the data of MC simulation, SiC is inferred to be a highly radiation resistant material when compared with Nb and Ni metals which are used in composition of several reactor steels. Experimental results of hill-hock density measured using AFM （atomic force microscopy）, also confirm radiation resistant behavior of SiC.

Quantification of radiation damage in natural and synthetic zircon by Raman spectroscopy:application to low-temperature thermochronology

Due to its ubiquitous occurrence in igneous,metamorphic,and sedimentary rocks and its wide application in geochronology and geochemistry,zircon has become the most widely used accessory mineral in the geological community.Nevertheless,the decay of U and Th causes radiation damage to the zircon structure,resulting in various degrees of metamictization,which can affect the accuracy of U–Pb dates and Hf and O isotope results.If the degree of zircon radiation damage can be quantified,the influence on geochemical analyses can be evaluated,and the results can be corrected more precisely.In this paper,synthetic and natural zircon crystals with different crystallization ages were selected for Raman spectroscopy analysis,cathodoluminescence imaging,and determination of the U and Th concentrations.The results show that Raman FWHM(full width at half bandmaximum)and Raman shift correlate with alpha dose(Da)ofzirconsfollowingtheseequations,FWHM=44.36(±2.32)×[1-exp(-2.74×Da)]-+1.7(±0.19),Raman Shift=-6.53×Da+1007.69.Analysis of synthetic zircon crystals shows that doped REEs(rare earth elements and P)can also lead to an increase in the FWHM.However,this effect can be ignored for natural zircon samples with REE contents at a normal level of hundreds to a few thousand ppm.The FWHM and Raman shift can be used as proxies to measure the degree of zircon radiation damage.Using the updated equations to calculate the latest age when zircon began to accumulate radiation damage,a more accurate and more meaningful“radiation damage age”can be obtained.

Potential of damage associated molecular patterns in synergising radiation and the immune response in oesophageal cancer

BACKGROUND There is an intimate crosstalk between cancer formation,dissemination,treatment response and the host immune system,with inducing tumour cell death the ultimate therapeutic goal for most anti-cancer treatments.However,inducing a purposeful synergistic response between conventional therapies and the immune system remains evasive.The release of damage associated molecular patterns(DAMPs)is indicative of immunogenic cell death and propagation of established immune responses.However,there is a gap in the literature regarding the importance of DAMP expression in oesophageal adenocarcinoma(OAC)or by immune cells themselves.AIM To investigate the effects of conventional therapies on DAMP expression and to determine whether OAC is an immunogenic cancer.METHODS We investigated the levels of immunogenic cell death-associated DAMPs,calreticulin(CRT)and HMGB1 using an OAC isogenic model of radioresistance.DAMP expression was also assessed directly using ex vivo cancer patient T cells(n=10)and within tumour biopsies(n=9)both pre and post-treatment with clinically relevant chemo(radio)therapeutics.RESULTS Hypoxia in combination with nutrient deprivation significantly reduces DAMP expression by OAC cells in vitro.Significantly increased frequencies of T cell DAMP expression in OAC patients were observed following chemo-(radio)therapy,which was significantly higher in tumour tissue compared with peripheral blood.Patients with high expression of HMGB1 had a significantly better tumour regression grade(TRG 1-2)compared to low expressors.CONCLUSION In conclusion,OAC expresses an immunogenic phenotype with two distinct subgroups of high and low DAMP expressors,which correlated with tumour regression grade and lymphatic invasion.It also identifies DAMPs namely CRT and HMGB1 as potential promising biomarkers in predicting good pathological responses to conventional chemo(radio)therapies currently used in the multimodal management of locally advanced disease.

Radiation Damage of Crystal Polyesters

The change of crystal structures in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyhexa methylene terephthalate (PHT) irradiated by γ-ray were investigated by using the methods of WAXD and SAXS. It was found that irradiation caused the crystal parameters of PET and PHT to lengthen, and the cell to expand; and at the same time, the long period and the thickness of lamellae were unchanged. These results indicate that the radiation damage of crystal polyesters causes the increase of lacunaries within the crystal polyester.