Results on the internal friction of disordered and partially ordered Cu_0·81Pd_0·19 alloy in the temperature range 160–300 K and frequency range 1–2 Hz are reported. All the peaks are classified into three groups. Two prominent peaks of the first group occurring between 180 and 200 K are observed only in completely disordered samples. A long annealing treatment removes these peaks. These peaks may be due to interaction of dislocations with preferentially clustered palladium atoms in the disordered alloy. A second group of peaks in the temperature range 210–270K is sensitive to the microstructure and are presumably related to dislocation-dislocation interactions. In partially ordered samples new peaks appear at between 210 and 285 K. Activation parameters of these peaks are presented.

Silver halide crystals AgCl and AgBr exhibit all the three types of intrinsic point defects, namely, cationic Frenkel disorder, Schottky disorder and the bound vacancy pair disorder. The ionic conductivity anomaly at high temperatures, the unusual behaviour in respect of self- and impurity diffusion and the contrasting features in the anion self-diffusion between AgCl and AgBr do not all satisfactorily fit into the prevailing models of ionic transport. We review these features critically. We also discuss the potential and polarization models used in the theoretical evaluation of the enthalpies of formation of the intrinsic defects in these crystals. Results of our recent investigations on these questions will be presented to highlight their implications to the defect physics of these materials.

We present new findings on the enthalpies of formation of vacancies and interstitial ion defects on either sublattice in the alkali halide crystals MX (X=F, Cl, Br and M=Li, Na) using the MPPI model. The model uses a minimum fit to crystal properties and is fully consistent with the dielectric response. The role of the non-Coulombic short range forcesvis-a-vis polarization fields in the stabilization of the defect formation process is examined and discussed in detail. It is shown that it is important to treat the electrostatic polarization caused by the point defect carefully and variation in potential modelling has a comparatively minor effect on the calculations of enthalpies of formation.

Perfluoroethylene sulfonic acid polymer (NAFION) films are subjected to ion exchange in the medium of aqueous solutions of cadmium acetate, followed by ammonia passivation. The films are then treated with hydrogen sulfide gas for prescribed times. X-ray powder diffraction data of these samples have been analyzed for estimating the sizes of the nanocrystallites. The optical absorption spectra of the samples show an absorption edge beginning at 525 nm for the largest size clusters. A broad absorption band appears with a maximum around 410 nm–440 nm in the smaller size clusters.