Defect recovery and trapping in plastically deformed Au studied by perturbed angular correlations ofIn111

Abstract

Au samples doped with "'In impurities and heavily deformed at 77 K were studied by perturbed angular correlations after undergoing isochronal annealing up to 500 K. Between 150 and 500 K we detected formation and dissolution of five defect-probe traps characterized by distinctive quadrupole interaction frequencies. Based on previous identifications of four of the traps and arguments that a previously undetected trap forming at 162 K has vacancy character, our experiments suggest trivacancy, divacancy, and monovacancy recoveries at 162, 180, and 240 K, respectively. From the order of the recoveries, we conclude that all three species are present immediately after deformation.For divacancies we observed thermally activated in situ transformation between two distinguishable trap configurations. The details of our isochronal annealing curves are well simulated via a kinetic rate model which assumes only first-order processes, and the trapping stages are found to explain most but not all features of stored-energy-release measurements.