MAT Collaboration Meeting 2026

Over the past decades, the effects of swift heavy ion (SHI) irradiation have been extensively studied across a wide range of materials. Most of these investigations have focused on bulk materials, providing fundamental insights into irradiation-induced processes and supporting the development of materials for high-radiation environments such as nuclear facilities, particle accelerators, and satellite components. However, when materials dimensions are reduced to the nanoscale, the irradiation response can differ substantially from that of bulk materials. Despite the growing use of nanostructured materials in radiation-relevant applications, the influence of size and geometry on SHI-induced modifications is not yet fully understood.
In this work, we investigate swift heavy ion–induced effects in nanostructures and thin films, with a focus on systematically studying size-dependent morphological and structural changes. Various nanomaterials are exposed to 1–2 GeV heavy ions at the GSI UNILAC accelerator under controlled irradiation conditions. High-resolution electron microscopy is used to characterize the resulting modifications and to identify size-dependent irradiation effects and their relation to the nanostructure geometry. Complementary molecular dynamics simulations provide further insight into the underlying mechanisms of energy deposition and material transformation connecting the observed structural changes with their atomistic origin.