Irradiation of metals leads to the formation of point-defects (vacancies and selfinterstitials) that usually agglomerate in the form of dislocation loops. Due to the elastic interaction between SIA (self-interstitial atoms) and dislocations, the loops absorb in most cases more SIA than vacancies. That is why the loops observed by transmission electron microscopy are almost always interstitial in nature. Nevertheless, vacancy loops have been observed in zirconium following electron or neutron irradiation (see for example [1]). Some authors proposed that this unexpected behavior could be accounted for by SIA diffusion anisotropy [2]. Following the approach proposed by Woo [2], the cluster dynamics model presented in [3] that describes point defect agglomeration was extended to the case where SIA diffusion is anisotropic. The model was then applied to the loop microstructure evolution of a zirconium thin foil irradiated with electrons in a high-voltage microscope. The main result is that, due to anisotropic SIA diffusion, the crystallographic orientation of the foil has considerable influence on the nature
(vacancy or interstitial) of the loops that form during irradiation.
