Molecular dynamics simulations of high-temperature annealing were performed on nanostructured materials in order to permit direct observation of vacancy emission from planar defects (grain boundaries, free surfaces) to populate an initially vacancy-free grain interior at a sub-ns time-scale. It was demonstrated that there was a universal time-length scale correlation that governed the re-equilibration processes. This suggested that nanostructures were particularly stable to perturbations, in their point-defect concentrations, which might be caused by particle irradiation or temperature fluctuations.

Time scale for Point-Defect Equilibration in Nanostructures. P.C.Millett, D.Wolf, T.Desai, V.Yamakov: Applied Physics Letters, 2008, 93[16], 161902