Mechanism of Formation and Growth of $〈100〉$ Interstitial Loops in Ferritic Materials

We propose a comprehensive mechanism for the formation and growth of $〈100〉$ interstitial loops in $\alpha$-Fe. This mechanism reconciles long-standing experimental observations of these defects in irradiated ferritic materials with recent atomistic simulations of collision cascades and defect cluster properties in Fe, in which highly mobile $\frac{1}{2}〈111〉$ clusters are seen to be the dominant feature. Hence, this work provides one of the necessary links to unify simulation with experiments in $\alpha$-Fe and ferritic alloys subject to high-energy particle irradiation.