Thermal stability and kinetics of defects in magnesium aluminate spinel irradiated with fast neutrons

Thermal stability of interstitial-type dislocation loops and cavities in single crystals of MgAl2O4 was examined during isochronal and isothermal annealing. The specimens were irradiated with fast-neutrons in FFTF/MOTA at 658 and 1023 K up to 249 dpa. During the isochronal annealing, dislocation loops started to shrink around 1000 K and completely disappeared at 1470 K without changing their character. Cavities grew slightly around 1570 K, and above this temperature, cavities shrunk with increasing annealing temperature. The recovery stage of point defects in MgAl2O4 was discussed in terms of the thermal stability of defect clusters; vacancy migration starts around 1000 K (corresponding to stage III), whereas vacancy clusters start to dissociate around 1570 K (corresponding to stage V). The vacancy migration energy for rate controlling species was estimated from the shrinkage process of interstitial-type dislocation loops to be 2.0 ± 0.7 eV.