Relaxation of Elastic Stresses and Relaxation-Induced Segregation in the Theory of Collisional Mixing

Relaxation of elastic stresses formed by collisional mixing is of crucial importance for structural and compositional changes in solid materials under ion bombardment. In this preprint an overview is given of our papers where the diffusional model of stress relaxation was put forward. Major implications of using the diffusional relaxation mechanism in the theory of collisional mixing of binary targets are discussed. The emphasis is on the relaxation segregation - a special kind of radiation-induced segregation caused by the preferential stress relaxation due to the component with the higher diffusional mobility.