Experimental validation and application of primary radiation damage models near the displacement threshold

Radiation damage is a common challenge for materials employed in a radiation environment. The present work performs experimental validation of current primary radiation damage models for recoil energy near the displacement threshold using electron irradiation experimental measures. The verified rescaling of resistivity change per Frenkel pair results in reasonable agreements between theories and experiments. The recent molecular dynamics-based model is demonstrated as consistent with experimental data for Fe, Ni, and Cu, whereas the classical step function approximation of the displacement probability is shown more adequate for Al and Ti. Further investigation is needed for Ag due to the excellent agreement with the not yet well supported rescaled experimental data. The validated primary radiation damage model of Fe leads to a ∼1/3 increase in gamma photon-induced displacement damage in nuclear reactor applications.