Mössbauer studies of thermal neutron radiation damage in an ordered alloy

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Mössbauer effect measurements on Au197 were done to study neutron radiation damage in the ordered alloy CoPt. Pt196 nuclei were irradiated with neutrons to produce unstable Pt197nuclei which β decay to the Au197 Mössbauer nuclei. The average recoil energy of ≈ 30 eV connected with thermal neutron capture led to replacement collisions of Pt197 ions with their neighbours. The Mössbauer results show that by irradiation at 330 K about 40% of the produced Au197 atoms have left their ordered sites with eight Co and four Pt nearest neighbours and ended up in sites with an average of (5.5 ± 0.3) Co and (6.5 ± 0.3) Pt nearest neighbours. This result can be explained by a model of replacement collisions of the recoil atoms with nearest or next nearest neighbours in the 〈110〉 or 〈100〉 directions. The results are fairly in agreement with computer‐simulation predictions for low‐energy recoil in f.c.c. metals.