Atomic Defects in Metals · Cd

This chapter discusses the annealing behaviour of cadmium (Cd). The most detailed investigation of the annealing behaviour of irradiated Cd has been performed after thermal neutron irradiations. Results are illustrated with Cd as the example for the annealing after irradiation with low transferred energies. The low temperature annealing stage at 4-6 K is also observed after e^--irradiation with low energies. This stage as well as the stages at 15-20 K and around 60 K are observed also after 3 MeV e^--irradiations to high doses. These stages seem to be suppressed after e^--irradiation at 20K and after fast neutron irradiation. Annealing after quenching is also shown. Vacancy migration has been established by the PAC observations of vacancy trapping and clustering at In probe atoms. Properties of Frenkel defects (FD) and vacancies (V) in Cd are provided. After plastic deformation minor annealing has been observed below 60 K and a large annealing stage has been detected above 100 K. Very detailed information on V-In-complexes has been obtained from PAC-measurements. Isochronal annealing and differential curves of the electrical resistivity of single crystalline Cd after thermal neutron irradiation, isochronal recovery of the electrical resistivity and differential recovery curves after low temperature irradiation with fast neutrons, change of the resistance produced by successive isochronal annealing are figured out.