Quantitative tests revealing hydrogen enhanced dislocation motion in α-iron

Hydrogen embrittlement jeopardizes the use of high-strength steels as critical load-bearing components in energy, transportation, and infrastructure applications. However, our understanding of hydrogen embrittlement mechanism is still obstructed by the uncertain knowledge of how hydrogen affects dislocation motion, due to the lack of quantitative experimental evidence. Here, by studying the well-controlled, cyclic, bow-out movements of individual screw dislocations, the key to plastic deformation in α-iron, we find that the critical stress for initiating dislocation motion in a 2 Pa electron-beam-excited H2 atmosphere is 27~43% lower than that under vacuum conditions, proving that hydrogen lubricates screw dislocation motion. Moreover, we find that aside from vacuum degassing, dislocation motion facilitates the de-trapping of hydrogen, allowing the dislocation to regain its hydrogen-free behavior. Atomistic simulations reveal that the observed hydrogen-enhanced dislocation motion arises from the hydrogen-reduced kink nucleation barrier. These findings at individual dislocation level can help hydrogen embrittlement modelling in steels.

A Numerical Analysis of Deformation Processes in Oxide Dispersion-Strengthened Materials - Influence of Dislocation-Particle Interactions

A recently developed 3D discrete dislocation dynamics (DDD) model is employed to study kinetics of dislocation ensembles subjected to high temperature creep in microstructures of metal matrix composites. We particularly focus on a migration of low angle tilt boundaries in a field of rigid impenetrable particles. This type of dislocation boundaries represents a typical microstructural feature mediating plastic deformation during the high temperature loadings. The article compares results of numerical studies that considered distinct dislocation-particle in-teractions in order to describe the response of dislocation structure to the applied stress. The resultssuggest that, regardless the details related to the dislocation-particle interactions, a critical applied stress always exists, below which the boundary migration process ceases [1,2]. The existence of crit-ical threshold is confirmed by creep tests of ODS materials. This critical threshold, contrary to theclassical Orowan stress, is proportional to the dislocation density. The displacements of individual dislocation segments on the micro-scale level reflect the changes in the dislocation-particle interactions quite sensitively. Atthemacro-scale level, the overall strain rate, which averages out velocities of all the individual dislocation segments, is also significantly influenced by the changes in dislocation-particle interaction

Full elastic strain and stress tensor measurements from individual dislocation cells in copper through-Si vias

Nondestructive measurements of the full elastic strain and stress tensors from individual dislocation cells distributed along the full extent of a 50 µm-long polycrystalline copper via in Si is reported. Determining all of the components of these tensors from sub-micrometre regions within deformed metals presents considerable challenges. The primary issues are ensuring that different diffraction peaks originate from the same sample volume and that accurate determination is made of the peak positions from plastically deformed samples. For these measurements, three widely separated reflections were examined from selected, individual grains along the via. The lattice spacings and peak positions were measured for multiple dislocation cell interiors within each grain and the cell-interior peaks were sorted out using the measured included angles. A comprehensive uncertainty analysis using a Monte Carlo uncertainty algorithm provided uncertainties for the elastic strain tensor and stress tensor components.

Evaluation of Dislocation Mobility in Wurtzite Semiconductors

ABSTRACTThe indentation hardness and yield strength of various wurtzite-structured semiconductors, such as AlN, GaN, InN, and ZnO, were summarized together with those of 6H-SiC. From analysis of the data, the activation energy for motion of an individual dislocation was deduced to be 2–2.7 and 0.7–1.2 eV in GaN and ZnO, respectively, and the evaluated activation energy for dislocation motion showed a dependence on the dislocation energy in the minimum length. The results were evaluated in terms of homology and the basic mechanism of the dislocation process. Dislocation motion is thought to be primarily controlled by the atomic bonding character of the semiconductors.

Dislocation Mobilities in GaN from Molecular Dynamics Simulations

ABSTRACTThe results of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of dislocation glide in GaN using a Tersoff potential are presented. The simulation methodology involves applying a constant shear stress to a single crystal system containing an individual dislocation, with multiple slip systems considered. Upon reaching a steady state, the dislocation velocity as a function of applied stress and temperature are determined. Edge dislocations with a-type Burgers vectors in the basal, prismatic and pyramidal planes have been analyzed over the temperature range of 300-1300K. The results from simulations of c-type edge dislocations at 1300 K are also presented.