The formation of radiation-induced dislocation loops and voids in tantalum at 180(2), 345(3) and 590(5)°C was assessed by 3MeV proton irradiation experiments and subsequent damage characterisation using transmission electron microscopy. Voids formed at 345(3)°C and were arranged into a body centred cubic lattice at a damage level of 0.55 dpa. The low vacancy mobility at 180(2)°C impedes enough vacancy clustering and therefore the formation of voids visible by TEM. At 590(5)°C the Burgers vector of the interstitial-type dislocation loops is a<100>, instead of the a/2 <111> Burgers vector characteristic of the loops at 180(2) and 345(3)°C. The lower mobility of a<100> loops hinders the formation of voids at 590(5)°C up to a damage level of 0.55 dpa.
The lifetimes of the first excited states of the N = 30 isotones (50)Ca and (51)Sc have been determined using the Recoil Distance Doppler Shift method in combination with the CLARA-PRISMA spectrometers. This is the first time such a method is applied to measure lifetimes of neutron-rich nuclei populated via a multinucleon transfer reaction. This extends the lifetime knowledge beyond the f_{7/2} shell closure and allows us to derive the effective proton and neutron charges in the fp shell near the doubly magic nucleus (48)Ca, using large-scale, shell-model calculations. These results indicate an orbital dependence of the core polarization along the fp shell.
