Thermal Neutron damage in cadmium

Abstract

The isochronal annealing of the damage produced by thermal neutron irradiation of cadmium at 3.6 °K has been studied for several initial doses which vary by a factor of 1000. The recovery results show a strong dependence upon initial dose. This effect, which is not seen to this extent in the fcc metals, cannot be accounted for by an irradiation annealing mechanism. In contrast to the observation of two processes involving long range defect migration for several fcc metals only one process, at high temperatures, is discernable from isochronal annealing of Cd. The presence of another process at low temperatures is clearly established by other means. Irradiation annealing effects observed during the production of damage at high defect concentrations indicate that the spontaneous annihilation volume between the defects of a new capture event and the defects from an earlier event is 80 atomic volumes. Other results suggest that damage production and recovery mechanisms may be associated with the anisotropic nature of the cadmium hexagonal lattice.