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APL 102

Defects in Crystals – 2D defects

Concepts: poly-crystals, grain boundary, low- & high- angle boundaries, tilt- &
twist- boundaries, twins, stacking faults, interphase
Lecture 19
 Recap
IIT Delhi Mixed dislocation Dislocation & Energy
  The direction of dislocation motion is always to t
is invariant
b
 (irrespective of b): Edge, screw & mixed
Here tt is changing  Slip plane is unique for edge and mixed
vv but not so for the screw dislocation
v vv
vv
v vv
vv  A dislocation line cannot end abruptly in the crystal
v – ends at node, surface or closes as loop
v
v 1 2
v
v Energy of a dislocation/unit length E  Gb
Pure 2
Pure Edge Dislocations will tend to have as small ab as possible
screw
Partial dislocations b is large for
Ionic crystals – ionic crystals
To maintain charge neutrality
Burgers vector has to be a full lattice translation
CsCl → b = <100> Cannot be ½<111>
NaCl → b = ½ <110> Cannot be ½<100>
 Defect Concentration
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Vacancy Concentration – f (T)

Dislocation Density () – Processes

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Question for thought

What is dislocation density?

 Dislocation density
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Density of dislocations () in a crystal

Total length of the dislocation line per unit volume of the crystal
(mm-3) or m-2

Annealed crystal (crystal kept at high temperature) has a dislocation

density of  = ~108 – 1010 /m2 (~105 Km)

Cold worked crystal :  = ~ 1012 – 1014 mm-3

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What is the other defect that is possible in crystals?

IIT Delhi CLASSIFICATION OF DEFECTS BASED ON DIMENSIONALITY

0D 1D 2D 3D
(Point defects) (Line defects) (Surface/Interface) (Volume defects)

Vacancy Dislocation Twins

Surface
Impurity Interphase Precipitate
boundary
Frenkel Faulted
Grain
defect region
boundary
Schottky Twin Voids /
defect boundary Cracks

Stacking
faults
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Surface imperfections
(2D defects)
 Classification of 2D defects
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External defect
 Crystal Surface boundary

Internal defect
 Grain boundary
o Low angle grain boundary
o High angle grain boundary
 Interphase boundary

 Twin Boundary

 Stacking faults
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External surface of the crystal
 External surfaces have energy related to the number of bonds broken at
the surface
No. of atoms/ unit area
na . nb . Eb
Surface Energy/
unit area (J/m2) γ No. of bonds broken per atom
2 Bond energy / bond

As two surfaces are created / bond broken

Surface free energies of some crystals (J/m2)

NaCl LiF CaF2 MgO Si Ag Fe Au Cu

0.30 0.34 0.45 1.2 1.24 1.14 1.4 1.4 1.65

IIT Delhi Internal surfaces in crystal

 Grain boundary
o Low angle grain boundary
o High angle grain boundary

 Interphase boundary

 Twin Boundary

 Stacking faults
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Question for thought

What is a grain boundary?

 Fundamental Difference between Single Crystal,
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Polycrystalline and Amorphous solids
Different length scales over which the atoms are
related to one another by translational symmetry
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Grain boundary
Crystalline solid:

Single crystal: Same crystal continuing over the entire volume of the crystal

Polycrystals: The entire volume consisting of many crystals oriented differently in

space

Real materials are polycrystalline in nature

Many crystals grow at the same time in melt

 Where is grain boundary here?
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3 2

Atoms at the boundary are arranged in the non-crystalline manner, curvilinear surface
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Grain boundary

Grain boundaries are narrow zones where the atoms are not properly spaced!
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Grain boundary

 Grain boundaries or high angle boundaries

 The atoms coming at boundary do not find themselves suitably placed

 The orientation difference between neighbouring grains is usually

greater than 10-15°

 Average number of neighbouring atoms in boundary region could be

different. In fact it is going to be lower, then energy will go up
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Grain boundary

 The grain boundary region may be distorted with atoms

belonging to neither crystal

 The thickness may be of the order of few atomic diameters

 The crystal orientation changes abruptly at the grain boundary

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(a) (b)

(a) Grain structure on a 2D-planar section of a polycrystal (c)

(b) Highly magnified view of a small region in the polycrystal

(c) 3D polyhedral shape of individual grains.

 Grain Boundary types
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 Grain Boundary types
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Low angle boundaries: Angle of mis-orientation is just few degrees

Tilt boundary: Array of edge dislocation

 Rotation axis lies on the boundary plane
Twist boundary: Array of screw dislocation

 Rotation axis lies  to the boundary plane

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Tilt boundary

Twist boundary
 Low angle tilt grain boundary
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b


2 2h

b b
 tan  ~
h h
 Low Angle Tilt Grain Boundary Low Angle Twist Grain Boundary
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b b
 
h h
 Inter-phase boundary
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Interface (Coherent, semi-coherent etc.,)

 Stacking Faults
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 Stacking Faults
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FCC stacking …ABC ABC ABC ABC…

FCC stacking
…ABC AB AB ABC…
with a stacking fault

Thin region of HCP type of stacking

In above the number of nearest neighbours remains the same but

next-nearest neighbours are different than that in FCC
 Twin boundary
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 Twin boundary
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 The atomic arrangement on one side of the twin boundary is

related to the other side by a symmetry operation (usually a mirror)

 Twin boundaries usually occur in pairs such that the orientation

difference introduced by one is restored by the other

 The region between the boundaries is called the twinned region

 Where is twin boundary here?
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Twin boundary
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Question for thought
Identify the different crystal defects that is present?

Point defects
or 0D defects Line Defects
IIT Delhi CLASSIFICATION OF DEFECTS BASED ON DIMENSIONALITY

0D 1D 2D 3D
(Point defects) (Line defects) (Surface/Interface) (Volume defects)

Vacancy Dislocation Twins

Surface
Impurity Interphase Precipitate
boundary
Frenkel Faulted
Grain
defect region
boundary
Schottky Twin Voids /
defect boundary Cracks

Stacking
faults
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Role of Dislocations

Diffusion
Slip Fracture Fatigue Creep (Pipe)

Structural

Incoherent Twin
Grain boundary
(low angle)

Semicoherent Interfaces
Disc of vacancies
~ edge dislocation
 Announcement
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 Quiz: 19th or 25th of September

Syllabus: After Minor 1 till last lecture before Quiz

 Compensating class on 16th September (@ 10:00 am)?