Isothermal and isochronal recovery between 40 K and 80 K in Cu and CuAu after thermal neutron irradiation

Current models of low-temperature radiation damage and recovery of fcc metals rely strongly on the annealing kinetics in recovery stages I/sub D/ and I/sub E/ of Cu, in particular on the classic work of Corbett, Smith and Walker (CSW). A more thorough investigation is presented of both isothermal and isochronal recovery of the residual resistance between 40 and 800K after thermal neutron irradiation of Cu and Cu(Au) to a Frenkel pair concentration of about 10-6 than has hitherto been reported. From isotherms reached in times as short as 5 to 15 s (in order to suppress possible fast initial reactions) and extending up to 3.82 . 104 s, isochronal recovery curves were constructed which should be more informative than the standard isochronal curves. Comparison with a standard 5 min isochrone bears this out. The 10.6 h isotherms were followed by isochronal anneals in order to test the thermal stability of the defect patterns emerging after the 10.6 h anneals