The objective of this research is to study solid state amorphization produced by irradiation of charged particles. Electron and ion irradiation will be applied to a number of intermetallic compounds, using the High Voltage Electron Microscope facility at the Argonne National Laboratory. Point defect characteristics of primary interest include threshold displacement energies, defect migration enthapies, defect recombination volumes, and the softening introduced per defect. In addition, anisotropy and elastic properties will be determined. The proposed research is expected to reveal the contributions that different types of lattice defects make in crystalline-to-amorphous phase transformations.
