Recovery Spectrum of Quenched Gold

A characteristic substructure has been observed in the isochronal electrical resistivity recovery between -20 and +170°C of quenched 99.99 and 99.9999% pure gold measured at 4.2K. Most of the quenched-in resistivity recovers between 35 and 125°C were three distinct processes (1), (2), and (3) are observed. This recovery shifts to lower temperatures with increasing quenching temperature and dislocation density; it also occurs at lower temperatures in the 99.99% gold compared to that of the purer material. Processes (1) and (2) have activation energies of 0.69±0.03 eV and 0.78±0.05 eV respectively, while the migration energy for process (3) is expected to be about 0.81 eV. The identification of the defects is discussed in view of the binding energy of divacancies.