Phase instability in crystals under irradiation

A diffusion term is introduced in the standard chemical rate model of the defect population in crystals under irradiation. For point defect generation rates larger than a critical value (g*), the uniform point defect population is shown to be unstable with respect to spatial fluctuations of the point defect concentration. g* is temperature dependent. Severala effects including the nucleation of arrays of point defect clusters, or radiation induced precipitation may occur above the instability threshold. Defect-defect interaction potentials play a crucial role in the numerical value of this threshold