Self-Organized Defect Phases along Dislocations in Irradiated Alloys

Patterning of precipitates along dislocation lines arising from nonequilibrium segregation during ion irradiation is investigated in model binary alloys. Lattice kinetic Monte Carlo simulations reveal that the competition between solute advection by point defects to the dislocation and thermal diffusion along the dislocation can stabilize self-organized nanostructures with distinct morphologies, including tubes and quasiperiodic necklaces. The stabilization of nanonecklaces is rationalized by heavy-tail power-law distributions for solute redistribution along the dislocation due to advection.