The damage (metamictization) which was produced in -quartz by these types of radiation was re-analyzed. It was concluded that the metamict state of irradiated quartz should exhibit some of the structural characteristics of the modulated structure which had been proposed for vitreous silica. The rnetamictization process was considered to be consistent with the structural relaxation of a highly defective quartz matrix. According to this point-defect analysis, structural relaxation was expected to be triggered by a critical concentration of O-vacancy point defects and was likely to decrease the connectivity of the SiO2 network to a large extent.

L.Douillard, J.P.Durand: Journal de Physique III, 1996, 6[12], 1677-87