Point-Defect Pinning of Dislocations during Initial Period of Continuous Low-Level Gamma Irradiation: Application to Stage III in Copper

Abstract

The pinning of dislocations by point defects formed during continuous low‐level irradiation is studied for short times. On the basis of stress‐assisted diffusion theory it is shown that the number of point defects which arrive at dislocations should be proportional to the 5/3 power of the irradiation time (for short times). These results are applied to stage III measurements in copper. The migration energy and (formation) volume determined from the transient data are 0.61±0.04 eV and (0.45±0.23)×10⁻²³ cm³, respectively.