Atomic-scale dynamic process of deformation-induced stacking fault tetrahedra in gold nanocrystals.
Stacking fault tetrahedra, the three-dimensional crystalline defects bounded by stacking faults and stair-rod dislocations, are often observed in quenched or irradiated face-centred cubic metals and alloys. All of the stacking fault tetrahedra experimentally observed to date are believed to originate from vacancies. Here we report, in contrast to the classical vacancy-originated ones, a new kind of stacking fault tetrahedra formed via the interaction and cross-slip of partial dislocations in gold nanocrystals. The complete atomic-scale processes of nucleation, migration and annihilation of the dislocation-originated stacking fault tetrahedra are revealed by in situ high-resolution observations and molecular dynamics simulations. The dislocation-originated stacking fault tetrahedra can undergo migration and annihilation due to mechanical loading in a manner that is not expected in bulk samples. These results uncover a unique deformation mechanism via dislocation interaction inside the confined volume of nanocrystals and have important implications regarding the size effect on the mechanical behaviour of small-volume materials.
1] Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, USA [2] Department of Materials Science and Engineering and State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
Jiang Wei
JW
Wang
Sankar
S
Narayanan
Jian Yu
JY
Huang
Ze
Z
Zhang
Ting
T
Zhu
Scott X
SX
Mao