A Molecular Dynamics Study of the Release of Material from the Surface of PuO2 Crystals Resulting from the Near-Surface Collision Cascades Impact.

The process of release of PuO2 molecules and clusters from the surface of PuO2 crystals caused by the α-decay collision cascades is studied using the molecular dynamics simulation. The amount of material emitted this way is calculated depending on the depth of the cascade initialization with respect to the surface. The estimated rate of the release (0.85 atoms/decay for a spherical 239PuO2 particle of the radius of 1 μm) is in good agreement with experimental data (0.72 atoms/decay for the particles of the same size). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]