Molecular dynamics simulations showed that, in an embedded-atom method crystal, interstitial loops which were made of <110> dumb-bells could be absorbed by an edge dislocation in 2 different ways. One route was to be attached to one of the Shockley partials by means of a dislocation junction. The other route was to be transformed into a double super-jog on the dislocation. In both cases, absorption was assisted by a flip of the loop Burgers vector. The simulations also showed that double super-jogs locked the dislocation but were only weak obstacles. In all cases, the loops could be dragged by the dislocation and lead to an additional friction force on the latter. The overall picture which was deduced from the simulations was that a dislocation, which glided across a field of interstitial clusters, absorbed the clusters which lay within its capture distance. These clusters then adopted a Burgers vector which was parallel to its dislocation glide plane and could therefore be dragged away. While being dragged, they travelled along the dislocation line and were eliminated either by coalescence with other absorbed clusters or by absorption at unit jogs or super-jogs. The dislocation could also sweep the clusters towards vacancy clusters; thus leading to the recombination of the interstitials with the vacancies.

Dislocation Pinning by Glissile Interstitial Loops in a Nickel Crystal - a Molecular Dynamics Study. D.Rodney, G.Martin: Physical Review B, 2000, 61[13], 8714-25