A detailed experimental study was made of the evolution of extended secondary defects which formed during the rapid thermal annealing of 0.5MeV self ion-bombarded material. The fluence (2 x 1015/cm2) and substrate temperature (91C) were chosen so that the primary damage levels were well below saturation. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy, Rutherford back-scattering spectrometry, and variable-energy positron annihilation techniques were used to distinguish vacancy-type and interstitial-type defects. The cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy revealed the formation of a previously unreported tubular defect at temperatures ranging from 700 to 765C. The occurrence of this defect parallelled positron annihilation data which showed that a small concentration of defects of vacancy type was present after annealing within this temperature range.

R.D.Goldberg, T.W.Simpson, I.V.Mitchell, P.J.Simpson, M.Prikryl, G.C.Weatherly: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 1995, 106[1-4], 216-21