On the Analysis of Experimental Data on Point Defect Recovery

A general method is derived for transforming isothermal annealing equations into expressions for the recovery as a result of arbitrary thermal treatment. Three types of treatment are considered in detail: linear continuous heating, linear isochronal pulse heating and hyperbolic isochronal pulse heating. The latter is shown to present some real advantages since in this case the transformation can be made without approximation. It is shown that linear isochronal pulse annealing data may be treated in good approximation by using the expression for continuous linear heating, if a rather severe condition is fulfilled (ΔT ⪅ (k T + 2o/E) and provided that the annealing temperature T_p is replaced by T_p + 1/2 ΔT. By this method the isothermal annealing equations, as derived by Waite for the case of bimolecular diffusion‐controlled reactions between homogeneously‐distributed defects, are adapted for application to isochronal annealing data.