Simulations of displacement cascades in SiC indicated that most defects created were point defects, where interstitials were displaced only a small distance from the nearest vacancies. Of the interstitial defects produced in SiC, about 40% survive as freely migrating interstitials that could contribute to microstructural evolution during irradiation of SiC. The stable defect configurations were created here by using low-energy recoils and molecular dynamics simulations. These stable Frenkel pairs were annealed at different temperatures, using molecular dynamics methods, to determine the time required for interstitials to recombine with vacancies. The molecular dynamics data were analyzed by using an Arrhenius relation, and the activation energies for defect recombination processes range from 0.22 to 1.6eV for C Frenkel pairs and from 0.28 to 0.9eV for Si Frenkel pairs. These low activation energies for spontaneous recovery of Frenkel pairs in SiC were qualitatively consistent with the recovery processes observed experimentally on both the Si and C sub-lattices below room temperature. Based on the data analysis, the spontaneous recombination distance was estimated to be 0.66 and 0.70ao for the C and Si sub-lattices, respectively.

Recovery of Close Frenkel Pairs Produced by Low-Energy Recoils in SiC. F.Gao, W.J.Weber: Journal of Applied Physics, 2003, 94[7], 4348-56