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International audience; The fragmentation of displacement cascades into subcascades in copper and iron has been investigated through the molecular dynamics technique. A two-point density correlation function has been used to analyze the cascades as a function of the primary knock-on (PKA) energy. This approach is used as a tool for detecting subcascade formation. The fragmentation can already be identified at the end of the ballistic phase. Its resulting evolution in the peak damage state discriminates between unconnected and connected subcascades. The damage zone at the end of the ballistic phase is the precursor of the extended regions that contain the surviving defects. A fractal analysis of the cascade exhibits a dependence on both the stage of the cascade development and the PKA energy. This type of analysis enables the minimum and maximum displacement spike energies together with the subcascade formation threshold energy to be determined.

Understanding ballistic effects induced by ion beam irradiation can be a key point for controlling and predicting the microstructure of irradiated materials. Meanwhile, the ion mixing framework suggests an average description of displacement cascades may be sufficient to estimate the influence of ballistic relocations on the microstructure. In this work, the BCA code MARLOWE was chosen for its ability to account for the crystal structure of irradiated materials. A first set of simulations was performed on pure copper for energies ranging from 0.5 keV to 20 keV. These simulations were validated using molecular dynamics (MD). A second set of simulations on AgCu irradiated by 1 MeV krypton ions was then carried out using MARLOWE only, as such energy is beyond reach for molecular dynamics. MARLOWE simulations are found to be in good agreement with experimental results, which suggests the predictive potential of the method.

We extend a previous small-angle neutron scattering study of sodium octanoate (NaC8) micelles to the ternary system sodium octanoate/pentanol/water. The use of contrast variation through selective deuteration of individual components together with explicit computation of interference effects, permits us to deduce the location of pentanol (C5OH) in the micelles. Our main conclusion is that, although the micelles grow as (C5OH) is solubilised, there is no concomitant variation in the NaC8 aggregation number. At low alcohol concentrations, the C5OH is located near the NaC8 polar heads, while at higher concentration the -OH groups are distributed throughout the micellar core.

Sodium octanoate micelles have been studied by light scattering at surfactant concentrations up to 1.8 M. The micellar weight as determined by intensity measurements shows an increase in the aggregation number from 11 at the c. m. c. to 26 at 1.8 M. Dynamic light scattering indicates a “reactive” diffusion which is a purely translational effect due to the chemical exchange between the micelles and free monomers.