Radiation-Resistant Materials in Nuclear Applications

Radiation‐resistant materials lie at the heart of modern nuclear technologies, from water‐cooled reactors to next‐generation fusion devices. Exposure to energetic neutrons and ions generates collision cascades that produce vacancies, interstitials and gas bubbles, leading to swelling, hardening and embrittlement. To mitigate these effects, researchers have developed alloys and ceramics exhibiting strong defect‐sink behaviour, high‐temperature stability and minimal activation under irradiation. Key strategies include dispersion strengthening with oxide particles, interface engineering to enhance defect recombination, compositional tuning to stabilise crystal phases and advanced modelling to predict damage evolution. Materials such as oxide dispersion‐strengthened tungsten, reduced‐activation ferritic/martensitic steels, silicon carbide ceramics and refractory metals are among the prime candidates. The global drive for low‐carbon energy, longer plant lifetimes and higher burn‐up rates has intensified efforts to combine mechanical performance with radiation tolerance, ensuring structural integrity and safety in harsh nuclear environments.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have introduced more realistic measures of atomic damage, replacing conventional displacement‐per‐atom metrics with corrected estimators that account for recombination and atomic mixing, thus enabling more accurate predictions of defect populations under irradiation. In parallel, oxide‐dispersion‐strengthened tungsten alloys prepared from novel core–shell oxide@W nanopowders have demonstrated homogeneous nanoparticle distributions and markedly improved strength and ductility at room temperature, while retaining irradiation resistance suitable for divertor and first‐wall applications. Complementing these advances, investigations into inelastic ionisation in silicon carbide have revealed a room‐temperature self‐healing mechanism whereby electronic excitations anneal pre‐existing lattice defects, restoring crystallinity and offering a pathway to recover structural order in ceramic materials exposed to high radiation doses.

Radiation-Resistant Materials in Nuclear Applications publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in radiation-resistant materials in nuclear applications across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Displacements per atom (dpa): A measure of the average number of times an atom is displaced from its lattice site due to irradiation.

Athermal recombination‐corrected dpa (arc-dpa): An improved metric that incorporates defect recombination to yield a more realistic estimate of surviving damage.

Oxide dispersion strengthening (ODS): A technique in which fine, stable oxide particles are uniformly distributed in a metal matrix to impede dislocation motion and trap defects.

Reduced‐activation ferritic/martensitic steel (RAFM): A low‐activation alloy designed for fusion applications, combining high‐temperature strength with minimal long‐lived radioisotope production.

Ionization-induced annealing: A self‐healing process where energetic ionisation events in the electron subsystem lead to recovery of the crystal lattice at room temperature.

Interface engineering: The deliberate design of grain or phase boundaries to enhance defect‐sink efficiency and promote recombination of vacancies and interstitials.

References

1. Repelling effects of Mg on diffusion of He atoms towards surface in SiC: Irradiation and annealing experiments combined with first-principles calculations. Journal of Advanced Ceramics (2023).
2. Improving atomic displacement and replacement calculations with physically realistic damage models. Nature Communications (2018).
3. Ionization-induced annealing of pre-existing defects in silicon carbide. Nature Communications (2015).
4. Development of benchmark reduced activation ferritic/martensitic steels for fusion energy applications. Nuclear Fusion (2017).
5. Ion-irradiation-induced clustering in W–Re and W–Re–Os alloys: A comparative study using atom probe tomography and nanoindentation measurements. Acta Materialia (2015).
6. Achieving high strength and ductility in ODS-W alloy by employing oxide@W core-shell nanopowder as precursor. Nature Communications (2021).