Safer nuclear reactors could result from Los Alamos

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, March 25, 2010—Self-repairing materials within nuclear reactors may one day become a reality as a result of research by Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists. In a paper appearing today in the journal , Los Alamos researchers report a surprising mechanism that allows nanocrystalline materials to heal themselves after suffering radiation-induced damage. Nanocrystalline materials are those created from nanosized particles, in this case copper particles. A single nanosized particle—called a grain—is the size of a virus or even smaller. Nanocrystalline materials consist of a mixture of grains and the interface between those grains, called grain boundaries. When designing nuclear reactors or the materials that go into them, one of the key challenges is finding materials that can withstand an outrageously extreme environment. In addition to constant bombardment by radiation, reactor materials may be subjected to extremes in temperature, physical stress, and corrosive conditions.