title: Bending crystals: emergence of fractal dislocation structures.
abstract: We provide a minimal continuum model for mesoscale plasticity, explaining the cellular dislocation structures observed in deformed crystals. Our dislocation density tensor evolves from random, smooth initial conditions to form self-similar structures strikingly similar to those seen experimentally-reproducing both the fractal morphologies and some features of the scaling of cell sizes and misorientations analyzed experimentally. Our model provides a framework for understanding emergent dislocation structures on the mesoscale, a bridge across a computationally demanding mesoscale gap in the multiscale modeling program, and a new example of self-similar structure formation in nonequilibrium systems.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics (LASSP), Clark Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-2501, USA.
authors.forename: Yong S
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Woosong
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Stefanos
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Papanikolaou
authors.forename: James P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Sethna