Influence of Silver Impurities on the Annealing Kinetics of Quenched Gold Specimens

The recovery of quenched-in extra resistivity has been studied in thin gold wires, to which atomic concentrations of silver equal to 1.2×${10}^{-3\mathrm{}}$ or 1.4×${10}^{-4\mathrm{}}$ have been added. Recovery occurs at higher temperatures than for pure specimens, the effective activation energy being larger than 1 ev. The interpretation is that vacancy-impurity complexes are formed, whose binding energy is about 0.3 ev. Evidence of motion of defects at low temperature is also obtained in the case of impure specimens.