Anelastic relaxation processes due to hopping of interstitial oxygen in scandium

The anelastic spectrum of the solid solution Sc–O has been investigated on a polycrystalline sample from 360 to 570 K for oxygen concentrations varying between 0.024 and 0.91 at.% O, as estimated by electrical resistivity and intentional doping. Two relaxation processes appear at 430 and 520 K for the vibration frequency of 3.5 kHz; both peaks are stable with thermal cycling and their intensities increase with the oxygen content.
The process at lower temperature has been tentatively interpreted as due to the stress-induced hopping of oxygen atoms between the non equivalent tetrahedral and octahedral interstitial sites. A possible mechanism for the higher temperature process could be the dissolution/formation of interacting O–O pairs.