The growth of interstitial clusters in graphite under irradiation
- 1 September 1966
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Philosophical Magazine
- Vol. 14 (129), 433-453
- https://doi.org/10.1080/14786436608211942
Abstract
After high doses of fast neutron irradiation graphite is observed to contain circular clusters of interstitial atoms, each one atomic layer thick inserted between the existing hexagonal layers of the lattice. In the electron microscope these are visible as unsheared dislocation loops having Burgers vector c/2 in the c-axis direction. They grow by the diffusion to them of the mobile interstitial atoms produced by the irradiation. This diffusion-controlled growth is discussed in the present paper with particular reference to the macroscopic growth of graphite crystals in the c-direction. The fractional macroscopic growth ΔXc/Xc has been observed to exceed the fractional growth of the c-spacing, Δc/c, by an amount which increases rapidly with dose. The present paper shows that this behaviour is understandable for a model which contains, in addition to mobile interstitials, also numerous small immobile interstitial clusters. It is argued that there is strong evidence for such defects, of high stability, from changes under irradiation in various other physical properties.Keywords
This publication has 12 references indexed in Scilit:
- The nucleation of radiation damage in graphitePhilosophical Magazine, 1965
- A new damage function for predicting the effect of reactor irradiation on graphite in different neutron spectraJournal of Nuclear Materials, 1965
- An electron microscope study of radiation damage in single crystal graphitePhilosophical Magazine, 1965
- RADIATION DAMAGE IN GRAPHITEPublished by Elsevier ,1965
- Interstitial and vacancy loops in graphite irradiated at high temperaturesBritish Journal of Applied Physics, 1964
- The scattering of long wavelength neutrons by defects in neutron-Irradiated graphitePhilosophical Magazine, 1964
- Dimensional changes in the irradiated graphite latticeCarbon, 1964
- The annealing of thermal conductivity changes in electron-irradiated graphitePhilosophical Magazine, 1963
- Energy to Form and to Move Vacant Lattice Sites in GraphiteNature, 1962
- On the numerical integration of a parabolic differential equation subject to a moving boundary conditionDuke Mathematical Journal, 1955