Formation and reversion of G-P zones in Al-1.3 at. % Ag alloy

The kinetics of clustering and reversion of G-P zones in an Al-1.3 at. % Ag alloy have been investigated by resistivity measurements, with special attention to the initial parts of reversion. From an analysis of clustering kinetics, vacancy formation, solute migration and solute-vacancy binding energies have been deduced to be 0.70, 0.53 and 0.10 eV respectively.The activation energy for reversion, which is identified as the activation energy for solute atom diffusion, is found to vary from 0.98 to 1.46 eV with increasing reversion time. This is attributed to variations in the vacancy concentration in equilibrium with small dislocation loops.