Nature of radiation defects in synthetic quartz according to the small-angle neutron scattering data

The supraatomic structure of single crystals of synthetic quartz in the initial state with a dislocation density of 570 cm^?2 and after irradiation in the VVR-M reactor at the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute with fast neutrons having the energy E _n > 1 MeV in the range of fluences F _n = 7.7 × 10¹⁷ ?2.1 × 10²⁰ neutrons/cm² has been studied by small-angle scattering of thermal neutrons. It is established that fast neutrons form point, linear, and volume lattice defects throughout the entire sample volume. Large-volume structures (nuclei of the amorphous phase) in quartz, reaching ～100 nm in size, occupy a small total volume (～1.5%) even at the maximum fluence 2.1 × 10²⁰ neutrons/cm². The majority of damage is related to the point defects with the radius of gyration of 1–2 nm and linear defects, which give comparable contributions up to several percent.