Dislocation climb, loop growth and void swelling during the continuous generation of intracascade primary clusters were considered. Due to the random nature of cascade initiation, the annihilation of point defects at sinks underwent continuous random fluctuations that often had sizes which were comparable to the sizes of the primary clusters. This made them particularly important in the evolution of small defect clusters. A reaction kinetics approach was generalized here so as to include the effects of stochastic fluctuations of point-defect fluxes which were introduced by random point-defect production in discrete packages during cascade irradiation. A reaction constant which was consistent with this approach was derived for the annihilation of immobile clusters by climbing dislocations. By taking immobile primary interstitial clusters to be interstitial loop nuclei, the evolution of loops and network dislocations - and resultant void swelling - were calculated as a function of dose. By using the parameters for stainless steel, the loop number-density, loop-size distribution, network line density and corresponding swelling were compared with experimental observations. The agreement was very satisfactory.

Stochastic Effects on Dislocation Structure Development under Cascade-Damage Irradiation. A.A.Semenov, C.H.Woo: Applied Physics A, 1998, 67[2], 193-207