Damage and Recovery of Aluminum for Low-Energy Electron Irradiations

Abstract
Damage rates for samples of high-purity aluminum have been measured as a function of the electron irradiation energy from 0.16-0.40 MeV. A detailed analysis of the data is presented and the results indicate that the threshold energy for an atomic displacement in aluminum is 16 eV. Experimental values of the fractional amount of stage-I recovery show that the percentage of stage I is not a simple function of the irradiation energy. The observed energy dependence is explained in terms of the production of subthreshold damage events.