It was postulated that a reaction-volume, termed the catch-volume, existed around a vacancy; such that an interstitial atom which entered this volume had to recombine with the vacancy. It was also postulated that, due to relaxation of the atoms around the vacancy, the activation barrier which an interstitial atom had to surmount - when jumping into this volume – could be different from the activation barrier for diffusion. A model was developed in order to explain why the residual vacancies decreased with annealing temperature during the annealing of electron-irradiated or ion-implanted diamonds. It was concluded that this catch-volume was different, and could form in addition to the capture radii which existed around traps when elastic and/or Coulomb forces were present.

On the Annihilation of Vacancies by Diffusing Interstitial Atoms in Diamond. J.F.Prins: Diamond and Related Materials, 2000, 9[11], 1835-9