IMPERFECTIONS IN SOLIDS

ISSUES TO ADDRESS...
• What types of defects arise in solids?

• Can the number and type of defects be varied

and controlled?

• How do defects affect material properties?

• Are defects undesirable?

• How do point defects in ceramics differ from those

in metals?

• In ceramics, how are impurities accommodated

in the lattice and how do they affect properties?
 TYPES OF IMPERFECTIONS
• Vacancy atoms
• Interstitial atoms Point defects
• Substitutional atoms

• Dislocations Line defects

• Grain Boundaries Area defects

 POINT DEFECTS
• Vacancies:
-vacant atomic sites in a structure.

Vacancy
distortion
of planes

• Self-Interstitials:
-"extra" atoms positioned between atomic sites.

self-
distortion interstitial
of planes
 OBSERVING EQUIL. VACANCY CONC.
• Low energy electron
microscope view of
a (110) surface of
NiAl.
• Increasing T causes
surface island of
atoms to grow.
• Why? The equil.
vacancy Click on image to animate

conc. increases via Reprinted with permission from Nature (K.F.

McCarty, J.A. Nobel, and N.C. Bartelt, "Vacancies
atom in
Solids and the Stability of Surface Morphology",
motion
Island from the
grows/shrinks to maintain
Nature, Vol. 412, pp. 622-625 (2001). Image is
equil. vancancy conc. in the bulk.
crystal 5.75 m by 5.75 m.) Copyright (2001)
Macmillan Publishers, Ltd.
to the surface, where
they join the island.
Dislocations:
LINE DEFECTS
• are line defects,
• cause slip between crystal plane when they move,
• produce permanent (plastic) deformation.

Schematic of a Zinc (HCP):

• before deformation • after tensile elongation

slip steps
 INCREMENTAL SLIP
• Dislocations slip planes incrementally...
• The dislocation line (the moving red dot)...
...separates slipped material on the left
from unslipped material on the right.

Simulation of dislocation
motion from left to right
as a crystal is sheared.

Click on image to animate

(Courtesy P.M. Anderson)

 BOND BREAKING AND REMAKING
• Dislocation motion requires the successive
bumping
of a half plane of atoms (from left to right here).
• Bonds across the slipping planes are broken and
remade in succession.

Atomic view of edge

dislocation motion from
left to right as a crystal
is sheared.

(Courtesy P.M. Anderson)

Click on image to animate
 DISLOCATIONS DURING COLD WORK
• Ti alloy after cold working:

• Dislocations entangle
with one another
during cold work.
• Dislocation motion
becomes more
difficult.

Adapted from Fig.

4.6, Callister 6e.
(Fig. 4.6 is
courtesy of M.R.
Plichta, Michigan
Technological
0.9 m University.)
 DISLOCATION-DISLOCATION TRAPPING
• Dislocation generate stress.
• This traps other dislocations.

Red dislocation
generates shear at A
pts A and B that
opposes motion of
green disl. from
B
left to right.
 AREA DEFECTS: GRAIN BOUNDARIES
Grain boundaries:
• are boundaries between crystals.
• are produced by the solidification process, for
example.
• have a change in crystal orientation
Metalacross
Ingotthem.
• impede dislocation motion.
Schematic ~ 8cm

grain
boundaries

heat
flow
Adapted from Fig. 4.7, Callister 6e.
Adapted from Fig. 4.10, Callister 6e.
(Fig. 4.10 is from Metals Handbook, Vol. 9, 9th edition,
Metallography and Microstructures, Am. Society for Metals,
Metals Park, OH, 1985.)
 OPTICAL MICROSCOPY (2)
Grain boundaries...
• are imperfections,
• are more susceptible microscope
to etching,
• may be revealed as polished surface
dark lines, surface groove
• change direction in a grain boundary
polycrystal.
Adapted from Fig.
ASTM grain 4.12(a) and (b), Callister
size number 6e.
(Fig. 4.12(b) is courtesy
of L.C. Smith and C.
N = 2n-1 Brady, the National
Bureau of Standards,
Washington, DC [now the
no. grains/in2 National Institute of

at 100x Fe-Cr alloy Standards and

Technology,
Gaithersburg, MD].)
magnification
DISLOCATIONS & MATERIALS CLASSES
• Metals: Disl. motion
+ + + + + + + +
easier. + + + + + + + +
-non-directional bonding + + + + + + + +
-close-packed directions
electron cloud ion cores
for slip.
• Covalent Ceramics
(Si, diamond): Motion
hard.
-directional (angular)
• Ionic Ceramics (NaCl):
bonding + - + - + - +
Motion hard.
- + - + - + -
-need to avoid ++ and --
neighbors. + - + - + - +
 DISLOCATION MOTION
• Produces plastic deformation, Plastically
• Depends on incrementally stretched
breaking zinc
single
bonds.
crystal.
Adapted from
Fig. 7.9, Callister
6e. (Fig. 7.9 is
from C.F. Elam,
The Distortion of
Metal Crystals,
Oxford University
Adapted from Fig. 7.1, Callister 6e. (Fig. 7.1 is adapted from A.G. Press, London,
Guy, Essentials of Materials Science, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1935.)
New York, 1976. p. 153.)

• If dislocations don't move, Adapted from

deformation doesn't happen! Fig. 7.8, Callister
6e.
 INCREMENTAL SLIP
• Dislocations slip planes incrementally...
• The dislocation line (the moving red dot)...
...separates slipped material on the left
from unslipped material on the right.

Simulation of dislocation
motion from left to right
as a crystal is sheared.

(Courtesy P.M. Anderson)

 BOND BREAKING AND REMAKING
• Dislocation motion requires the successive
bumping
of a half plane of atoms (from left to right here).
• Bonds across the slipping planes are broken and
remade in succession.

Atomic view of edge

dislocation motion from
left to right as a crystal
is sheared.

(Courtesy P.M. Anderson)

 DISLOCATIONS & CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
• Structure: close- view onto two
packed close-packed
planes.
planes & directions
are preferred. close-packed directions
close-packed plane (bottom)close-packed plane (top)

• Comparison among crystal structures:

FCC: many close-packed planes/directions;
HCP: only one plane, 3 directions;
BCC: none

• Results of tensile Mg (HCP)

testing.
tensile direction
Al (FCC)
 STRESS AND DISLOCATION MOTION
• Crystals slip due to a resolved shear stress, R.
• Applied tension can produce such a stress.
Applied tensile Resolved shear Relation between
stress:  = F/A stress: R=Fs /As  and R
F slip plane R=Fs/As
A R
normal, ns
As Fcos  A/cos
Fs
F ns
n
l ip cti
s re
o
i on
 A
i p t
di sl rec Fs As
F di R ip cti
on
l
s re
di
R  cos  cos 
 CRITICAL RESOLVED SHEAR STRESS
• Condition for dislocation motion: R  CRSS
• Crystal orientation can make typically
it easy or hard to move disl.
10-4G to 10-2G
R  cos  cos 
  

R = 0 R =/2 R = 0
=90° =45° =90°
=45°
 DISL. MOTION IN POLYCRYSTALS

• Slip planes & directions
(, ) change from one
crystal to another.
Adapted from
Fig. 7.10,
• R will vary from one Callister 6e.
(Fig. 7.10 is
crystal to another. courtesy of C.
Brady, National
Bureau of
Standards [now
• The crystal with the the National
Institute of
largest R yields first. Standards and
Technology,
Gaithersburg,
MD].)

• Other (less favorably

oriented) crystals
yield later. 300 m