9503934 Motta This U.S.-Brazil Collaborative Research grant will support the research of Livio Amaral of Brazil (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul) and Arthur Motta of the U.S. (Pennsylvania State University, University Park) in cooperation with Nghi Lam of Argonne National Laboratories and Gary Catchen of Penn State to study the defect energetics and configurations of point defects in the intermetallic compounds of the Zr-Fe-* system. Three methods will be used in the study: Moessbauer spectroscopy, atomistic simulation of defects, and charged particle irradiation. The mix of skills and equipment will uniquely support these methods. Livio Amaral is an experimental physicist with published work on iron-zirconium compounds, while Arthur Motta has done irradiation studies of related compounds--one of the methods proposed. The two other U.S. collaborators bring relevant skills and equipment to the project as well. The cooperation established by the proposed activities should lead to in-depth scientific knowledge made possible by the assembled expertise of the participants. ***
