Equilibrium Concentration of Vacancies in Crystals | Metallurgy
Vacancies have been seen to be thermodynamically stable in crystalline solids above 0°K, and that their number increase exponentially with the increase of temperature, as illustrated in Fig. 4.8 for aluminium. To understand this, the usual concept of Gibbs free energy for metal-system is used. In a perfect crystal, all lattice sites are occupied by atoms so that no vacancies [...]