Trimer formation due to dimer-dipole aggregation in alkali halides

Abstract

We previously showed that impurity-vacancy dipole density in KCl and NaCl, doped with various divalent impurities, decreases with time, due to dimer formation and dissociation, initially. This decay period is followed by a plateau where the rates of formation and dissociation of dimers are equal. Here, we show that further decay beyond the plateau region is due to a simple dimer-dipole association to form trimers.