ABSTRACTDissociation of both basal and prism plane dislocations in sapphire,α−Al2O3,is common and the partial dislocations can be imaged using conventional transmission electron microscopy and weak beam dark field imaging techniques. At elevated temperatures the dissociation takes place by conservative self-climb, a process involving short range diffusion, whereas at low temperatures the dissociation can occur by glide. Dissociation of a dislocation can in some situations give rise to very strong contrast when using g vectors for which g→.b→=0 for the undissociated dislocation. Those contrast conditions can be used to obtain information about the dislocation morphology and the stacking fault energy of the fault plane through determination of the separation distance.
