Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
Single crystalline specimens of pure Pd have been irradiated at ambient temperature with 590 MeV protons to doses ranging between 10−4 and 10−1 dpa. Tensile deformation experiments revealed that irradiation induces hardening and embrittlement, while scanning (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations showed that plastic deformation of specimens irradiated to a dose ≥ 10−2 dpa is strongly localized and yields the creation of slip bands at the macroscopic scale and of defect-free channels at the microscopic level.