Positron methods for the study of defects in bulk materials

The basic principles of positron annihilation physics are briefly discussed and the three most important experimental techniques used for bulk studies are described (i.e. positron lifetime, angular correlation, Doppler broadening). Several examples of the use of the positron methods are discussed for metals, ceramics and molecular materials, which illustrate the sensitivity of the positron annihilation techniques to vacancy type defects. For example it is shown how information can be obtained about vacancy formation energies, vacancy migration and clustering, vacancy-impurity interactions, densities of rare gasses in bubbles in metals, and about free volume in molecular materials.