Kinetics of Vacancy-Interstitial Annihilation. III. Interstitial Migration to Sinks

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Abstract
The kinetics of vacancy-interstitial annihilation when interstitials are permitted to anneal at sinks has been studied both by analytic and computer techniques. During the annealing the interstitial concentration decays to zero but the vacancy concentration approaches a terminal value governed by an analytic relation between the concentration of interstitials and vacancies, valid at all times, and independent of the annealing temperature but a function of the sink and initial defect concentration. The growth of defect concentration during irradiation at a temperature where the interstitials are mobile has also been studied. The interstitial concentration goes through a maximum as a function of irradiation time. Past this maximum a steady-state approximation is valid and the subsequent growth of the vacancy concentration can be described by a simple relation. The vacancy growth in steady state is independent of the temperature and is only a function of the integrated exposure. The rate of vacancy accumulation during continuous irradiation is compared to that arising from intermittent irradiations (low temperature) and annealings.