Are there metals in which vacancies repel each other?

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24656371
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Physical properties of metals
• Research Institution: Shimane University
• Principal Investigator: ARAKAWA Kazuto 島根大学, 総合理工学研究科(研究院), 准教授 (30294367)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 空孔 / 格子欠陥 / 電子顕微鏡 / タングステン / 高融点金属

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Supersaturated vacancies, which are produced upon plastic deformation, quench, crystal growth, and energetic particle irradiation, often agglomerate and form clusters such as voids, and significantly degrade mechanical properties of materials. The origin of the vacancy-cluster formation is attractive interaction of vacancies. The idea of the attractive interaction of vacancies has been a common knowledge in materials science. If the interaction of vacancies is repulsive, vacancy-cluster formation is expected to be suppressed. Are there metals with repulsive interaction of vacancies? In the present study, we examined vacancy agglomeration processes in tungsten using high-voltage electron microscopy, and obtained results supporting the idea of repulsive interaction of vacancies.

Free Research Field

格子欠陥