Positron annihilation studies of recrystallization in the subsurface zone induced by friction in magnesium—effect of the inhomogeneity on measured positron annihilation characteristics

The discussion of the positron annihilation studies of crystal structure defects, like vacancies, dislocations, grain boundaries and the defect depth profile, is presented. The role of the positron implantation depth and positron diffusion in such studies has been considered in detail. For description of the measured annihilation characteristics the proposed theoretical models take into account both effects. The annealing studies of defects created in pure magnesium by compression or dry sliding-wear were used for demonstration of the discussed thesis. The positron lifetime measurements were applied for monitoring open volume defects behavior. It was demonstrated that annealing at the temperature of about 300 °C removes the defects created by compression. Application of the proposed model to description of the data obtained allows to determine the activation energy of the grain boundary mobility in pure magnesium equal to Q=0.56±0.18 eV. However, defects created by the dry sliding are not completely annealed up to the temperature of 500 °C. The defect depth profile induced by dry sliding evolves with the annealing temperature in such a way that at the worn surface concentration of defects gradually decreases but at the depth between 60 and 100 μm the generation of new defects takes place at temperature of 150 and 225 °C. Above 300 °C the defects still are extended up to the depth of about 80 μm.