The annealing of stacking-fault tetrahedra in gold was observed directly using high-voltage electron microscopy. It was concluded that tetrahedra annealed via vacancy emission from jog-lines propagating across the faces of the tetrahedra. An analysis of the annealing kinetics, based upon such a shrinkage model, yielded a value for the jog-line energy in the range of 0.4 to 0.8eV/atom-plane and stacking-fault energies of between 30 and 120mJ/m2.

Direct Observations of the Annealing of Stacking-Fault Tetrahedra in Gold using High Voltage Electron Microscopy. H.L.Fraser, M.H.Loretto, R.E.Smallman: Philosophical Magazine, 1973, 28[5], 1043-56