Mild-to-wild plastic transition is governed by athermal screw dislocation slip in bcc Nb

Rizzardi, Q.; McElfresh, C.; Sparks, G.; Stauffer, D. D.; Marian, J.; Maaß, R.

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-28477-4

Title: Mild-to-wild plastic transition is governed by athermal screw dislocation slip in bcc Nb

Journal Article · 22 February 2022 · Nature Communications

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28477-4 · OSTI ID:1978590

Rizzardi, Q. ^[1]; McElfresh, C. ^[2]; Sparks, G. ^[3]; Stauffer, D. D. ^[4]; Marian, J. ^[2];

^[5]

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States); Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
University of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
Bruker Nano Surfaces & Metrology, Hysitron Products, Eden Prairie, MN (United States)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States); Federal Institute of Materials Research and Testing (BAM), Berlin (Germany)

Plastic deformation in crystals is mediated by the motion of line defects known as dislocations. For decades, dislocation activity has been treated as a homogeneous, smooth continuous process. However, it is now recognized that plasticity can be determined by long-range correlated and intermittent collective dislocation processes, known as avalanches. Here we demonstrate in body-centered cubic Nb how the long-range and scale-free dynamics at room temperature are progressively quenched out with decreasing temperature, eventually revealing intermittency with a characteristic length scale that approaches the Burgers vector itself. Plasticity is shown to be bimodal across the studied temperature regime, with conventional thermally-activated smooth plastic flow (‘mild’) coexisting with sporadic bursts (‘wild’) controlled by athermal screw dislocation activity, thereby violating the classical notion of temperature-dependent screw dislocation motion at low temperatures. An abrupt increase of the athermal avalanche component is identified at the critical temperature of the material. Our results indicate that plasticity at any scale can be understood in terms of the coexistence of these mild and wild modes of deformation, which could help design better alloys by suppressing one of the two modes in desired temperature windows.

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Research Organization:: University of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES); University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0012774

OSTI ID:: 1978590

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 13; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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