Point defect annealing near voids

Kinetic calculations were carried out for the annealing of vacancies and interstitials at voids under irradiation conditions. The case in which there is a small energy barrier between a defect and a void (such as might arise from strain effects or solute segregation at void surfaces) has been investigated in detail. With irradiation conditions which yield void swelling, it is found that a small barrier produces a significant bias parameter for preferential annealing. The bias parameter is relatively insensitive to temperature and irradiation rate, but varies with void radius, decreasing as the void size increases