Production and migration of interstitials in deformed metals

An investigation was made of defect production during plastic deformation. Prior to cold-rolling, samples of Au were damaged and preannealed at temperatures in order to maximize site fractions of five different In-vacancy defect complexes, such as In-1V and In-2V. Evolutions of site fractions were monitored by perturbed γ-γ angular correlation spectroscopy after additional strains at 77 K. Observed transformations between sites are consistent with defect-antidefect annihilation reactions between the small complexes and mobile interstitials, and indicate a large production of interstitials during deformation. An extended defect complex attributed to a planar faulted loop became glissile under small strain.