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Stukowski, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Stukowski, A..

Horizons of modern molecular dynamics simulation in digitalized solid freeform fabrication with advanced materials

Our ability to shape and finish a component by combined methods of fabrication including (but not limited to) subtractive, additive and/or no theoretical mass-loss/addition during the fabrication is now popularly known as solid free form fabrication. Fabrication of a telescope mirror is a typical example where grinding and polishing processes are first applied to shape the mirror and thereafter an optical coating is usually applied to enhance its optical performance. The area of nanomanufacturing cannot grow without a deep knowledge of the fundamentals of materials and consequently, the use of computer simulations is becoming ubiquitous. This article is intended to introduce the most recent advances in the computation benefit specific to the area of solid free form fabrication as these systems are traversing through the journey of digitalisation and Industry-4.0. Specifically, this article demonstrates that the application of the latest materials modelling approaches, based on techniques such as molecular dynamics, are enabling breakthroughs in applied precision manufacturing techniques.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Atomistic simulation of Er irradiation induced defects in GaN nanowires

Classical molecular dynamics simulation was used to irradiate a GaN nanowire with rear-earth erbium (Er). Ten cumulative irradiations were done using an ion energy of 37.5 keV on a 10 × 10 nm²surface area which corresponds to a fluence of 1 × 10¹³ cm⁻². We studied the location and types of defects produced in the irradiation. Er implantation leads to a net positive (expansion) strain in the nanowire and especially at the top region a clear expansion has been observed in the lateral and axial directions. The lattice expansion is due to the hydrostatic strain imposed by a large number of radiation induced defects at the top of the NW. Due to the large surface-to-volume ratio, most of the defects were concentrated at the surface region, which suggests that the experimentally observed yellow luminescence (YL) in ion implanted GaN NWs arises from surface defects. We observed big clusters of point defects and vacancy clusters which are correlated with stable lattice strain and the YL band, respectively.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗

Atomistic simulation of tantalum nanoindentation: Effects of indenter diameter, penetration velocity, and interatomic potentials on defect mechanisms and evolution

Nanoindentation simulations are a helpful complement to experiments. There is a dearth of nanoindentation simulations for bcc metals, partly due to the lack of computationally efficient and reliable interatomic potentials at large strains. For this study, we carry out indentation simulations for bcc tantalum using three different interatomic potentials and present the defect mechanisms responsible for the creation and expansion of the plastic deformation zone: twins are initially formed, giving rise to shear loop expansion and the formation of sequential prismatic loops. The calculated elastic constants as function of pressure as well as stacking fault energy surfaces explain the significant differences found in the defect structures generated for the three potentials investigated in this study. The simulations enable the quantification of total dislocation length and twinning fraction. The indenter velocity is varied and, as expected, the penetration depth for the first pop-in (defect emission) event shows a strain rate sensitivity m in the range of 0.037–0.055. The effect of indenter diameter on the first pop-in is discussed. A new intrinsic length-scale model is presented based on the profile of the residual indentation and geometrically necessary dislocation theory.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Plastic deformation of a porous bcc metal containing nanometer sized voids

Nanoporous materials, can present an outstanding range of mechanical properties. Here both molecular dynamics and dislocation analysis were used to evaluate and quantify the evolution of plasticity in a porous Ta single crystal containing randomly placed voids with 3.3 nm radii and average initial porosity of 4.1%, when subjected to uniaxial compressive strain. Nanovoids act as effective sources for dislocation emission. Dislocation shear loops nucleate at the surface of the voids and expand by the advance of the edge component. The evolution of dislocation configuration and densities were predicted by the molecular dynamics calculations and successfully compared to an analysis based on Ashby’s concept of geometrically-necessary dislocations. Resolved shear stress calculations were performed for all bcc slip systems and used to identify the operating Burgers vectors in the dislocation loops. The temperature excursion during plastic deformation was used to estimate the mobile dislocation density which is found to be less than 10% of the total dislocation density.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

MEAM interatomic force calculation subroutine for LAMMPS

Interatomic force and energy calculation subroutine tobe used with the molecular dynamics simulation code LAMMPS (Ref a.). The code evaluates the total energy and atomic forces (energy gradient) according to cubic spine-based variant (Ref b.) of the Modified Embedded Atom Method (MEAM).

Stukowski, A.↗

MEAM interatomic force calculation subroutine for LAMMPS

Interatomic force and energy calculation subroutine tobe used with the molecular dynamics simulation code LAMMPS (Ref a.). The code evaluates the total energy and atomic forces (energy gradient) according to cubic spine-based variant (Ref b.) of the Modified Embedded Atom Method (MEAM).

Stukowski, A.↗