DAMAGE PRODUCTION AND ANNEALING IN ION-IRRADIATED FCC METALS

Presented at the Workshop on Effects of Recoil Energy Spectrum and Nuclear Transmutations on the Evolution of Microstructure, March 24–29, 1988 at Lugano, Switzerland. Damage production, radiation annealing and stage I recovery in some FCC metals irradiated with ~ 1 MeV and ~ 100 MeV ions near 10 K are studied using electrical resistivity measurements. For ~ 1 MeV light and heavy ion irradiations, the fraction of stage I recovery and the damage efficiency decrease with the PKA median energy. For ~ 100 MeV heavy ion irradiations, an anomalous reduction of stage I recovery and a large cross-section for subthreshold recombination are found in Ni, and an enhancement of the damage efficiency is found in Cu; they are interpreted as due to the electron excitation by irradiating ions and the subsequent energy transfer from excited electrons to lattice atoms. Simultaneous differential equations describing the production and radiation annealing of two or more types of defects are solved, where the respective defect concentration is expressed as a function of fluence. © 1990, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.