Researchers in the Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) of the School of Materials Science and Engineering of XJTU systematically studied the effect of oxygen solutes on the mechanical deformation of niobium by combining the research methods of macroscopic mechanics with micro-nanoscale in-situ mechanical performance analysis and atomic-scale simulations. They demonstrated the roles of oxygen solutes in point defect aggregation, screw dislocation and permanent nucleation damage of niobium, revealed the micro-mechanism of hardening and damage initiation caused by oxygen solutes, and created clear physical images of the hydrogenem brittlement of niobium. This work is significant in research on the mechanism of the hardening and damage initiation in deformation and radiation of other body-centred-cubic refractory metals.

Recently, the research result was published in Acta Materialia, an internationally respected journal in the metal material field, under the title Mechanism of hardening and damage initiation in oxygen embrittlement of body-centred-ucbic nobium. XJTU is the institutional affiliation of the first author and the corresponding author.