Ryan Elliot

I completed my integrated master’s in physics at the University of Oxford in 2023 and was drawn to materials science, condensed matter physics, and fusion power because they sit at the intersection of many exciting topics in physics. My PhD project is in making statistical models for the distribution of point defects in steel due to high-dose irradiation damage. This will involve running large numbers of atomistic simulations of irradiation damage events and analysing them using statistical methods to develop a model that describes the distribution of the vacancies (missing atoms) and interstitials (atoms where they shouldn’t be) caused by high energy neutron fluxes. Initially this will be focused on pure iron, but it will be expanded to
consider the effects of material defects such as dislocations, grain boundaries, and previous irradiation damage.

The goal of my research is to bridge the gap between simulations of small numbers of irradiation damage events, which cannot be run for high doses due to large computational costs, and experimental studies of irradiated samples, which are hard to get hold of and cannot be used to measure processes at sub-second timescales. I am extremely excited to be researching the irradiation damage processes inside fusion reactors so that I may hopefully contribute to understanding the lifecycle of such materials and the design of new materials to address the engineering challenges involved in fusion power.

Supervisors

• Professor Christopher Race
• Professor Russell Goodall