Advanced laser-based nano- and micro-scale thermal transport in nuclear ceramics irradiated by swift heavy ions

Collaborative Research Program for 2022-2024

Proposed research pursues a fundamental predictive understanding of how thermal transport properties and performance of crystalline metal oxide, nitride, and carbide nuclear ceramics under extreme swift heavy ion (SHI) radiation can be controlled and used to design high performance nuclear inert matrix fuels (IMF) with enhanced radiation tolerance for next-generation advanced nuclear reactors. To reach this ultimate objective we will employ hybrid use of advanced femtosecond laser-based time-domain thermoreflectance (TDTR) and continuum wave (CW) laser-based modulated thermoreflectance (MTR) techniques for nondestructive nanoscale and microscale depth-profiling of radiation-driven heat conduction, respectively. Proposed multiscale assessment of defects- and microstructure- mediated thermal phonon conduction in nuclear ceramics under SHI irradiation will be supported by pre- and post-irradiation characterization of nano- and microstructure and defects proliferation in ceramics involving transmission and scanning electron microscopy (TEM and SEM), positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS), x-ray diffraction (XRD), electron backscattering diffraction (EBSD) and photoluminescence (PL), Raman and optical absorption (OA) spectroscopies. Results of temperature-dependent thermal property measurements and structural characterization will be used to develop and validate our non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) thermal transport modeling.
Proposed research will be implemented by the international teams led by the project PI, Prof. Zhandos Utegulov of Nazarbayev University (NU) in Nur-Sultan (Kazakhstan) in collaboration with Co-PI research teams of Prof. Yanwei Wang of NU Chemical and Materials Engineering Department, Dr. Artem Kozlovskiy of Eurasian National University (ENU) in Nur-Sultan (Kazakhstan), Dr. Vladimir Skuratov of Joint Institute of Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna (Moscow, Russia) and Prof. Marat Khafizov of Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus (Ohio, USA).
In its nature this collaborative research endeavor is highly interdisciplinary, spanning experimental, theoretical and computational material science, advanced laser-based thermal property measurements and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, materials irradiation by accelerator-derived SHIs and materials structural characterization.