Computer simulation of displacement spike annealing

Abstract A computer simulation of short term annealing of 5- and 20-keV displacement cascades in α-iron has been carried out. A Monte Carlo technique was used to move the defects in correlated random walks on a bcc lattice. Correlations extended to 10th neighbors for interstitials and 5th neighbors for vacancies. A low temperature simulation permitted only interstitial migration, whereas a high temperature simulation permitted both interstitial and vacancy migration with a jump frequency ratio of 100 to 1. Temperature sensitive parameters included the jump frequency of the di-interstitial relative to the single interstitial and the recombination region for unlike defects. Annihilation amounted to 80 per cent and 50 per cent at high and low temperature, respectively. Relative to the low temperature anneal, the high temperature anneal resulted in about the same number of vacancy clusters (although the production of large clusters was clearly enhanced) and only one-third as many interstitial clusters. A deta...