TY - JOUR A1 - Xu, Alan A1 - Moschetti, Michael A1 - Miskovic, David A1 - Wei, Tao A1 - Ionescu, Mihail A1 - Wang, Zhiyang A1 - Palmer, Tim A1 - Bhattacharyya, Dhriti A1 - He, Peidong A1 - Li, Xiaopeng A1 - Gludovatz, Bernd A1 - Ferry, Michael T1 - Improved irradiation resistance of a low activation refractory medium entropy alloy, VCrFeW0.2, for fusion applications demonstrated by micro-tensile testing N2 - An, as cast, VCrFeW0.2 refractory medium entropy alloy (RMEA) was designed for fusion reactor divertor applications, focusing on reduced cost, low activation and compositional stability (low transmutation rates). The as-cast alloy was irradiated to a fluence of 5.6 × 10^17 ions/cm^2 at room temperature with 5 MeV helium ions whose energy have been uniformly attenuated to 0.4 MeV and 5 MeV via energy degradation device prior to sample irradiation. Pre and post irradiation, its mechanical properties were evaluated micro-tensile testing. Prior to irradiation, the VCrFeW0.2 alloy demonstrated good strength and ductility, with a yield strength of 1464 MPa and strain to UTS (\sigma_UTS) of 4.6 %, maintaining comparable strength to pure tungsten (1403 MPa) but with greater strain to UTS (1.3 %). Post irradiation, the VCrFeW0.2 alloy exhibited remarkable damage resistance; its strength increased by only ∼160 MPa, and it retained strain to UTS with a \sigma_UTS of 2.9 %. It performed better than pure tungsten tested under identical irradiation conditions where there was ∼1800 MPa increase in yield strength and a complete loss of plasticity. The micro-tensile results were supported by nanoindentation tests and Vickers hardness testing was also undertaken to show the yield strength values are representative of macro scale, bulk behavior. TEM and comparison with existing literature on RMEA/RHEA are presented here to understand the reason for difference in performance between VCrFeW0.2 alloy and pure tungsten. KW - Refractory medium entropy alloys KW - Fusion reactor materials KW - Irradiation resistance KW - Micro-tensile testing KW - Helium ion damage PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-645322 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrmhm.2025.107481 SN - 0263-4368 VL - 134 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - Elsevier Ltd. CY - Netherlands AN - OPUS4-64532 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -