Theory of gas bubble nucleation in supersaturated solution of vacancies, interstitials and gas atoms

A general form of the kinetic coefficients of the Fokker-Planck equation describing gas bubble nucleation in supersaturated solution of vacancies, interstitials and gas atoms is obtained. No assumptions concerning the detailed balance are used to describe the absorption and desorption of point defects and gas atoms at the bubble surface. This allows us to investigate limits of the usual formalisms of the gas bubble nucleation in irradiated materials. The 'hard sphere' equation of state is applied to describe the gas in the bubble. High densities of the gas atoms collected in the nucleated bubbles considerably decrease the critical bubble size and its nucleation barrier. The nucleation rate of the gas bubbles is obtained and its temperature dependence is investigated in detail. It is shown that an increase of the gas atom concentration results in decrease of the temperature of the nucleation rate maximum. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.