Credit: Image courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Bombarding a damaged material with high-energy charged atoms called ions can heal the pre-existing defects—breakdown in the atomic order of a crystal—rather than create more defects. In the projected electron microscopy images, the previously damaged crystal (smeared spots in top slab) is bombarded with high-energy ions. Surprisingly, this process restores structural order (ordered bright spots in bottom slab) by local heating, a process called annealing. Self-healing from the transfer of the ion’s energy to electrons in the damaged material could lead to longer-lasting components for use in extreme environments, such as nuclear power plants.