Spontaneous Nanocrystals/Amorphous MoS Film Induced by Fe Irradiation with Superior Irradiation Tolerance and Tribology Properties.

High-performance radiation-resistant lubricating materials (RRLMs) with nanostructures hold great promise for enhancing the irradiation tolerance because of their sinking effect of boundaries on defects. Despite recent advances, challenges remain in finding a nanostructure that exhibits both superior irradiation tolerance and excellent lubricant properties. Unlike traditional nanostructured composite materials that required complex predesign, herein, a MoS nanocrystals (NCs)/amorphous dual phase in subirradiation saturation (SIS) state was spontaneously formed during irradiation, exhibiting high irradiation resistance under the synergistic effect of "defect traps" by interfaces and edge dislocation.

MoS Nanocomposite Films with High Irradiation Tolerance and Self-Adaptive Lubrication.

Although nanostructures and oxide dispersion can reduce radiation-induced damage in materials and enhance radiation tolerance, previous studies prove that MoS nanocomposite films subjected to several dpa heavy ion irradiation show significant degradation of tribological properties. Even in YSZ-doped MoS nanocomposite films, irradiation leads to obvious disordering and damage such as vacancy accumulation to form lamellar voids in the amorphous matrix, which accelerates the failure of lubrication. However, after thermal annealing in vacuum, YSZ-doped MoS nanocomposite films exhibit high irradiation tolerance, and their wear duration remains unchanged and the wear rate was nearly three orders of magnitude lower than that of the as-deposited films after 7 dpa irradiation.