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.