Neutron radiation damage in Cu-Ge alloys

This paper describes the study by TEM of radiation damage in a range of Cu-Ge alloys neutron-irradiated to doses 1017 - 2 x 1018 fast neutrons cm-2 (> 1 MeV) at temperatures between 800C and 3500C. A systematic investigation is being made of the changes in the various components of the damage structure in order to understand the effect of alloying on their inter-relationship. The work is an extension of previous work on pure Cu irradiated under similar conditions. Single crystals of the alloys were irradiated in Harwell reactor PLUTO. Details of the alloys and the irradiation conditions are given. Specimens were examined using standard diffraction contrast techniques to characterize irradiation-induced defect clusters and dislocation structures. Some of the trends in the results are summarized. The dose dependence is not considered here explicitly. (Auth.)