The Evolution of a Single Void under Irradiation

• Published in: International journal of materials research Vol. 89; no. 2; pp. 142 - 148
• Main Authors: Boiko, Yuri I., Slezov, Vitali V., Apalkov, Vadim M., Carstanjen, Heinz. D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: De Gruyter 16.12.2021
• ISSN: 1862-5282; 2195-8556
• DOI: 10.3139/ijmr-1998-0027

The behaviour of spherical and cylindrical voids in a solid under irradiation is investigated. The irradiation is assumed to result only in the creation of point defects – vacancies and interstitials. In the stationary stage of the process, i. e. for the time when the point defects have already taken their stationary distributions, the irradiation tends to increase the sizes of the voids. Special attention was paid to the nonstationary stage of the void evolution. Because the diffusion coefficient of interstitials is larger than the diffusion coefficient of vacancies, a fast decrease of the void size is observed during nonstationary stage. A critical void radius is found: voids with radii smaller than the critical one disappear during the nonstationary stage; voids with radii larger than the critical one will fail to disappear during the nonstationary stage. The radii of these voids will increase during the stationary stage later on. The influence of the finite size of the sample on the rate of the void evolution is investigated.