The primary damage state in 3C-SiC has been comprehensively studied by molecular dynamics using a modified Tersoff potential. The simulations examined damage produced by Si and C primary knock-on atoms (PKA) with energies from 0.25 to 30 keV. The study also generated statistics of defect production by simulating a number of PKAs at each energy. The defect production efficiency decreases with increasing PKA energy, as observed previously in metals. However, the cascade lifetime is very short (less than 1 ps), localized melting does not occur, the defect arrangements are highly dispersed, and the tendency for defects to form clusters is much less compared to the case of metals. Frenkel pairs on the C sublattice are more numerous than Si Frenkel pairs, and 10-20% of the displacements are in the form of anti-site defects.
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