Defects:

Point (0-D), Line (2-D), Planar (2-D), Volume (3-D)

Line Defects: dislocations

Reading material: 588-593 of Kittel, 632-635 of Ashcroft and Mermin

https://www.nde-
ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Materials/Structure/linear_defects.htm

Difference between Elastic deformation (reversible) and plastic deformation (irreversible)

Plastic deformation occurs when the stress applied is higher than a critical shear stress >1010 dynes/cm2
When such a shear stress is applied, planes in a crystal slide over one another, ie. one part of a crystal
slides as a unit over an adjacent part.
Plastic deformation proceeds by slip, and a slip propagates through a dislocation (which is a line
imperfection i.e. extra atoms added). The surface on which the slip takes place is called the slip plane and
the direction of motion of the slip is the slip direction.

The two simplest kinds of dislocations are edge and screw dislocations as illustrated below.

Now, here, please try to visualize these two kinds of dislocations through the aid of the figures (taken
from Kittel and A&M). You can refer to other figures available on the net.

Edge dislocation Slip has occurred only over the left part (but not the right part) of the slip plane. The
boundary between the two regions is called the dislocation. Can be imagined by inserting a half-plane of
atoms in the upper half (or by removing half-plane of atoms in the lower half) and then joining back the
two planes on either side of the missing plane. In this way, the order of the crystal is maintained
everywhere except in the neighbourhood of the dislocation line.
Near the dislocation, the crystal is highly strained, The upper part is under compressive stress and the
lower one under tensile.

Screw dislocation: Visualise a plane terminating at the dislocation line. The crystal is displaced by a
lattice vector parallel to the line

Imagine a crystal cut along ABCD. The right side is pushed below by a lattice constant as compared to
the left. Further, this step is terminated at the point B, so it does not extend throughout the surface. The
line BC is the boundary etween the slipped and unslipped parts and is the dislocation line and is parallel
to the slip plane.

Burgers vector

Consider a closed path in the perfect crystal (Fig, 30.16 of A&M)) . First consider the bottom
parallelogram. The closed path in the perfect crystal passes through lattice points and can be covered by
a series of displacements by a Bravais lattice vector.

Now consider the dislocated crystal (upper part of Fig. 30.16. . Here you can observe extra atoms placed
linearly. Choose a closed path considerably far from the dislocation. Thus, the configuration of the
crystal in the neighbourhood of the path looks almost identical to the undistorted crystal. Now one does
the same series of displacements by a Bravais lattice vector. If by doing this, the starting point is not
reached, there are dislocations within the path. The Bravais lattive vector by which the endpoint does
not match with the starting point is called the Burgers vector corresponding to the dislocation. So, now
when you transverse through any of the Bravais Lattice vectors, you do not get back to the starting
point.

One can consider any closed path, which is not necessarily planar within the crystal as above, as shown
in Kittel (Fig, 9, shown above). So, Burgers vector does not depend on the path.

For an edge dislocation, Burgers vector is perpendicular to the direction of the edge dislocation

Screw dislocation, Burgers vector is parallel to the screw dislocation

Hints for Tutorial 5, Q6

1 1
𝑏⃗ = [ , , 0]
2 2

Direction of dislocation, t= [112]

Define slip plane by (hkl)

Normal to slip plane: [uvw]

Cubic system: [uvw] can be determined from the cross product of two vectors lying in the slip plane. 𝑏

So [u vw] = [11̅0] Slip plane is (11̅0)

bscrew=bcos

bedge=bsin

⃗ .𝑏
𝑏 ⃗
𝑐𝑜𝑠 = |𝑏||𝑡| = 1⁄√3

Hence find bscrew and bedge