Annealing reactions in lead implanted copper

Abstract The terminal solubility of Pb in Cu is extremely low and does not exceed 0.09 at.% at 875 K. Ion implantation of lead ions at 100 keV into Cu single crystals produces metastable solutions. Annealing of the samples causes redistribution of the implanted atoms to equilibrium or near-equilibrium aggregate states which may be reflected in a change in the type of impurity lattice location in the host matrix. We have studied the effect of annealing on single crystalline Cu implanted at temperatures around 375 K with Pb to a concentration of a 1–2 at.%. Rutherford backscattering/channeling analysis and transmission electron microscopy of the as-implanted samples have shown that the implan…