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Highly Enhanced Transport by Supersonic N ‐Crowdions (Phys. Status Solidi RRL 12/2017)
Author(s) -
Dmitriev Sergey V.,
Medvedev Nikolay N.,
Chetverikov Alexander P.,
Zhou Kun,
Velarde Manuel G.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
physica status solidi (rrl) – rapid research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.786
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1862-6270
pISSN - 1862-6254
DOI - 10.1002/pssr.201770366
Subject(s) - supersonic speed , atom (system on chip) , atomic physics , crystal (programming language) , irradiation , thermal , chemistry , energy transport , plasma , physics , molecular physics , mechanics , quantum mechanics , thermodynamics , engineering physics , engineering , computer science , embedded system , programming language
An interstitial atom placed in a close‐packed atomic row of a crystal is called “crowdion”. Such defects are highly mobile, they can move along the row in a random‐walk manner under thermal fluctuations or they can propagate ballistically at a speed higher than speed of sound, transporting mass and energy. In the study by Dmitriev et al. (see article no. 1700298 ), the concept of the classical supersonic crowdion is generalized to N‐crowdions in which not one but N atoms move simultaneously at a high speed. With the help of molecular dynamics simulations for face‐centered cubic Morse crystal it is demonstrated that N‐crowdions are much more eficient in mass transport being able to propagate through larger distances having smaller total energy than the classical 1‐crowdion. Supersonic N ‐crowdions are more robust with respect to thermal fluctuations. The new concept of N ‐crowdions can be helpful in the explanation of mass transport in solids under irradiation, surface plasma treatment, ion implantation, fast atom bombardment, and during plastic deformation.