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Atomic-scale insights into damage produced by swift heavy ions in polyethylene

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Abstract

We describe the formation of swift heavy ion tracks in polyethylene (PE) by combining the Monte Carlo code TREKIS, which models electronic excitation in nanometric proximity of the ion trajectory, with the molecular dynamics simulating a response of the atomic system to the excitation. The model predicts circular tracks in amorphous PE but elliptical ones in crystalline PE caused by preferential propagation of excitation along polymer chains during the cooling stage. The obtained track sizes and shapes agree well with the high-resolution transmission microscopy of tracks in PE with colorant. The velocity effect in PE is shown: the track parameters differ for ions with the same linear energy losses but different velocities.

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Data and code availability

Data will be made available upon a reasonable request. TREKIS-3 code used in this research is available from https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.8394462.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Michael V. Sorokin for helpful discussions. PB, SG, RV, and AEV gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Russian Science Foundation (Grant No. 22-22-00676). NM thanks the financial support from the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports (grants No. LTT17015, LM2023068, and No. EF16_013/0001552). This work has been carried out using computing resources of the federal collective usage center Complex for Simulation and Data Processing for Mega-science Facilities at NRC “Kurchatov Institute”, " http://ckp.nrcki.ru”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninskij Pr., 53, Moscow, Russia, 119991

    P. Babaev, S. Gorbunov, R. Voronkov & A. E. Volkov

  2. Industrial Focus Group XUV Optics, MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Drienerlolaan 5, 7522 NB, Enschede, The Netherlands

    F. Akhmetov

  3. Institute of Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Na Slovance 1999/2, 18221, Prague 8, Czech Republic

    N. Medvedev

  4. Institute of Plasma Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Za Slovankou 3, 18200, Prague 8, Czech Republic

    N. Medvedev

  5. Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Research, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia

    R. Rymzhanov

  6. Institute of Nuclear Physics, Almaty, Kazakhstan

    R. Rymzhanov

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  1. P. Babaev
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  2. F. Akhmetov
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  3. S. Gorbunov
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  4. N. Medvedev
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  5. R. Rymzhanov
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  7. A. E. Volkov
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Contributions

PB contributed to formal analysis, methodology, validation, investigation, writing—original draft, visualization. FA contributed to formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing—review and editing. SG contributed to formal analysis, writing—original draft, review and editing, visualization. NM contributed to software, formal analysis, writing—review and editing. RR contributed to formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing—review and editing. RV contributed to formal analysis, writing—review and editing, visualization. AEV contributed to supervision, conceptualization, formal analysis, writing—original draft, review and editing.

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Correspondence to P. Babaev.

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Babaev, P., Akhmetov, F., Gorbunov, S. et al. Atomic-scale insights into damage produced by swift heavy ions in polyethylene. J Mater Sci 58, 17275–17291 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-023-09117-8

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