Defect sink

A feature that absorbs mobile point defects, such as a free surface, grain boundary, dislocation or cavity. Capture efficiency and relative preference for defect types are as important as visible size or number.

Preferential absorption of self-interstitials relative to vacancies by a sink. Dislocation bias contributes to the unequal defect fluxes that can sustain void swelling.

In a mean-field diffusion model, an effective inverse-area measure for removal of mobile defects. The loss rate $D{k}^{2}c$ has number-density-per-time units when $D$ is diffusivity and $c$ is defect number density.