Atomic mobility under irradiation: experimental verification of the phenomenological model

Abstract

Elastic after-effect measurements were conducted in a fast electron flux to monitor, at every instant of the irradiation, the atomic mobility, as derived from the kinetics of directional ordering in a Ag-30 at.% Zn alloy. The evolution profiles on application or suppression of flux agree well with the predictions of the model generally used to estimate the defect supersaturations under irradiation. Flux and temperature dependence of every one of the parameters which describe the various phases of the increase of the atomic mobility, as the irradiation proceeds, i.e. initial enhancement rate, characteristic time for the build-up of a quasistationary regime, a quasistationary and stationary enhancement levels, were determined. Again full agreement with theory was observed. These results appear as the first systematic experimental check for the phenomenological model.