On the determination of the nature of defect clusters produced by displacement cascades. Pt. 1: A critique of the two-and-a-half-dimensional technique as applied to small clusters in silver and copper

The application of the two-and-a-half dimensional (21/2D) technique to the analysis of the nature of small point-defect clusters in ion-irradiated silver and copper has been explored. A modification of the technique which allows the identification of reciprocal-lattice spike effects has been made. However, even with this modification a comparison of analyses of the same clusters by 21/2D and the Black-White contrast method showed that 21/2D analyses of small faulted point-defect clusters are unreliable. (Author)