Defect clustering and self-healing of electron-irradiated boron-rich solids
- Laboratoire de Physique des Solides Semi-cristallins, Institut de Genie Atomique, Ecole Polytechnique Federale, CH 1015 Lausanne (Switzerland)
- Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185-1421 (United States)
Transmission-electron-microscopy observations are used to evaluate damage produced by irradiating boron-rich metals, semimetals, and semiconductors of three different structure types with energetic electrons. The propensity for damage increases with decreasing carrier concentration except for borides based on twelve-atom icosahedral units. In these semiconducting icosahedral borides neither defect clusters nor amorphorization were observed. In accord with studies of other icosahedral borides, we conclude that radiation-induced boron vacancies and interstitials self-heal in icosahedral borides. We explain this self-healing as having its origin in the unusual structural and electronic stability of fragments of boron-rich icosahedra, termed degraded icosahedra.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Albuquerque, NM, and Livermore, CA (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 44519
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review, B: Condensed Matter, Vol. 51, Issue 17; Other Information: PBD: 1 May 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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