Positron annihilation studies of irradiation induced defects in nanostructured titanium

The effect of irradiation doses and the role of grain size for titanium subjected to swift heavy 167 MeV Xe26+ ion irradiation have been investigated. Positron annihilation spectroscopy was applied for these studies. The nanostructured surface was obtained by blasting and annealing treatment. It was noticed that the concentration of vacancy clusters in the ion projectile range significantly decreased by a factor two after the grain size reduction. These clusters were built from 5 to 16 vacancies and were present mostly near the area occupied by the implanted atoms. Promising Ti properties as self-healing metal have been found. This study shows that grains structure strongly affects the resistivity of metals for irradiation and proves that surface mechanical treatments can be used as a grain size refinement method and modification of surface for enhanced irradiation resistivity. •Implementation of surface mechanical treatments for fundamental irradiation studies.•Enhanced irradiation resistivity of Ti surface by blasting.•Self-healing properties of nanostructured Ti.