Vacancy Recovery in Quenched Aluminium–Indium Alloys

Abstract The recovery of quenched-in vacancies in a number of aluminium–indium alloys based upon zone-refined aluminium has been studied by means of resistivity measurements and transmission electron microscopy. Recovery is shown to occur in three stages: (a) solute–vacancy association, (b) the formation of prismatic dislocation loops, and (c) the annealing out of the loops. The kinetics of the first stage are analysed and for low quench temperatures found to be consistent with a modified Damask and Dienes theory. Consideration is given to the possibility of solute–vacancy association occurring during quenching. From loop-density measurements the indium–vacancy binding energy is roughly estimated to be 0·27 eV.