Helium accumulation in structural ceramics used in nuclear, fusion, and aerospace systems causes swelling, cracking, and early failure, yet controlling this damage has remained elusive. Here, we introduce defect landscape engineering, the deliberate creation of vacancy clusters prior to helium exposure, as a general strategy to suppress helium-induced degradation. Using α-SiC as a model, we combine advanced microscopy, strain mapping, helium depth profiling, positron annihilation spectroscopy, and atomistic simulations to demonstrate that tailored pre-damage transforms helium defect evolution. Instead of forming extended platelets and nanocracks, helium is trapped in stable, uniformly dispersed nanobubbles. Simulations reveal that small vacancy clusters act as dual-function sinks for irradiation-induced interstitials and preferential traps for helium, fundamentally altering the dynamics of cascade recombination. This mechanism is composition-independent and scalable, offering a new design principle for radiation-tolerant ceramics across carbides, nitrides, and oxides. By viewing defect control as a tunable parameter instead of a fixed material property, this work outlines a possible design route toward enhanced radiation tolerance in ceramics used in extreme environments.

The electronic stopping power of protons traveling along the channeling and off-channeling trajectories in platinum (Pt) is reported based on time-dependent density functional theory calculations for electrons combined with Ehrenfest molecular dynamics simulations for ions in real time and real space. We provided an intuitive description of the electronic stopping power for a wide range of ion energies, and revealed the excitation mechanism for the inner $4f$ electrons of Pt. The comparison of calculation results with experimental data showed that conduction electrons are sufficient to describe the electronic stopping power of Pt accurately in the low-energy range. The excitation of $4f$ electrons contributes substantially to the electronic stopping power of Pt as the proton velocity exceeds 1.0 a.u. Our calculated stopping power is in quantitative agreement with the experimental data up to the stopping maximum, and showed that the stopping power obtained from the off-channeling geometry is greatly improved in comparison with the channeling results. Finally, the velocity dependence of the mean steady-state charge of protons was quantified, and the results showed that the instantaneous charge state of protons exhibits periodic oscillations in the low-energy region, while the periodic oscillations disappears in the high-energy region due to more ionization of protons.

First-principles calculations were performed to investigate the effects of boron/nitrogen dopant on the geometry, electronic structure and magnetic properties of the penta-graphene system. It was found that the electronic band gap of penta-graphene could be tuned and varied between 1.88 and 2.12 eV depending on the type and location of the substitution. Moreover, the introduction of dopant could cause spin polarization and lead to the emergence of local magnetic moments. The main origin of the magnetic moment was analyzed and discussed by the examination of the spin-polarized charge density. Furthermore, the direction of charge transfer between the dopant and host atoms could be attributed to the competition between the charge polarization and the atomic electronegativity. Two charge-transfer mechanisms worked together to determine which atoms obtained electrons. These results provide the possibility of modifying penta-graphene by doping, making it suitable for future applications in the field of optoelectronic and magnetic devices.