The effects of one-dimensional migration of self-interstitial clusters on the formation of void lattices

A series of kinetic Monte Carlo computer experiments performed on idealized systems clearly reveals the dramatic effects of 1-D migration of self-interstitial atom (SIA) crowdion clusters on the stability of void lattices. In the presence of migrating SIA, void lattices are shown to be unstable under pure 3-D SIA migration, but they are extremely stable, relative to random arrays of voids, under 1-D SIA migration. Void lattices remain stable even under the condition of fairly frequent changes in the Burgers vectors of the 1-D migrating SIA clusters. Clusters with average 1-D path segments having lengths on the order of the nearest neighbor distance in the void lattice can maintain the stability of void lattices.