Point defects observations by molecular dynamics and calculated TEM imaging

A simulation method which combines molecular dynamics and calculated TEM imaging is presented. The simulation is applied to irradiated crystalline silicon and silver to clarify the minimum amount of disorder which could be experimentally observed. It is found that in Si isolated cascades formed at energies near the displacement threshold are clearly visible, while in Ag observable disordered regions are generated only by the overlapping of many cascades launched with energy well above the energy displacement threshold.