The impact of a variety of point defects on the inception of plastic deformation in dislocation-free metals

I Salehinia and DF Bahr, SCRIPTA MATERIALIA, 66, 339-342 (2012).

DOI: 10.1016/j.scriptamat.2011.11.028

Atomistic simulations of nanoindentation tests were used to quantify the effect of point defects (a single vacancy, a di-vacancy, a self interstitial atom and a stacking fault tetrahedron) on the onset of plasticity in copper. The stacking fault tetrahedron reduces the pressure needed to nucleate a dislocation by almost half of that of the perfect crystal. Reduction in the normalized yield pressure relative to the perfect crystal for a given defect is independent of indenter size. (C) 2011 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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