Study of radiation damage effects in a pseudo-hexagonal metal: Ga

Abstract

It is known that Ga has a pseudo-hexagonal unit cell. Radiation damage data for Ga are compared to corresponding results for other hcp metals. A threshold energy for atomic displacement of 12 ± 1 eV has been found with a specific resistivity per defect pair equal to 5.4 t 0.5 μΩ-cm/At%. A number of first order recovery stages have been resolved in the temperature range up to 28 K with activation energies ranging up to 0.056 eV. Major dose-dependent recovery stages analogous to the I_D - I_E stages in Cu are prominent in the temperature range 28–50 K. An explanation is proposed for the apparent anomalously high temperature for recovery in Ga.