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Bridging atomistic and continuum descriptions of nanoscale dislocation loops in tungsten

Joseph Duque1,*, Sergei Dudarev2, James Kermode1, and Thomas Hudson3

  • *Contact author: joseph.duque@warwick.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 095402 – Published 21 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/23lh-lmvy

Abstract

In order to predict the long-term effects of irradiation on the material properties of tungsten, a continuum approach to simulating the interactions of dislocation loops, which arise from radiation damage, is proposed. Continuum models of the displacement, strain, and stress fields produced by dislocation loops exhibit unphysical singularities near the defect core, but are thought to accurately capture atomistic displacements in the far field. A linear elastic model of nanoscale dislocation loops in tungsten is developed, and the model is verified using atomistic simulations to ensure that the model is informed by lower-length scale phenomena such that the physics of the problem is correctly captured. We discuss the model and its advantages, and show that predictions produced by atomistic simulations do indeed agree well with the far-field behavior of the continuum model when dislocation loops are far from material boundaries. In particular, we robustly demonstrate that the decay rate of atomistic results and continuum results coincide with one another, and show that the results converge as the size of the atomistic simulations approach the far-field limit.

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Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 095402– Published 21 September, 2026
  • Received 20 April 2026
  • Accepted 18 August 2026
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