Abstract
Previous studies on the plastic deformation of Sb have shown that twinning and slip are involved in the plastic deformation of this semimetal. No data are available on the recovery of deformed Sb. In this paper we present results obtained for low-temperature (77 K) and room-temperature deformed Sb by performing Doppler broadening and lifetime measurements in the temperature range 77-300 K and 300-620 K for the low-temperature and room-temperature deformed samples respectively. Large vacancy clusters are present in the as-deformed samples. Two recovery stages are found at 350 and 490 K, which are ascribed to vacancy cluster dissolution and to dislocations respectively. It is suggested that larger agglomerates dissolve during the high-temperature recovery stage.