Annihilation behavior of irradiation defects in Li 4 SiO 4 irradiated with high thermal neutron fluence

Abstract The annihilation behavior of irradiation defects in Li 4 SiO 4 which were irradiated with thermal neutrons to a high fluence was studied by electron spin resonance (ESR). It was observed that the ratio of O-related centers to E'-centers increased with increasing annealing temperature. The total irradiation defects were annihilated through two processes, namely the fast (120–250 °C, 70%) and the slow ones (250–500 °C, 30%), and their activation energies were determined to be 0.63 ± 0.09 and 0.89 ± 0.14 eV, respectively. The observed annihilation behavior of irradiation defects in Li 4 SiO 4 was found to be very different from that in a previous study, which could be attributed to the difference in concentration and types of irradiation defects generated by different neutron fluences. It was implied that the annihilation behavior of irradiation defects in ternary lithium oxides would become more complicated with increasing neutron fluence.