"Loading-Unloading" Effect Could Make For Safer Nuclear Reactors
Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 16:21
in Physics & Chemistry
In a paper appearing today in Science, Los Alamos researchers report that a newly discovered "loading-unloading" effect allows nanocrystalline materials to heal themselves after suffering radiation-induced damage. The discovery may eventually lead to much safer nuclear power plants. 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. read more