A molecular dynamics study was made of the mechanisms and kinetics of void growth and morphological evolution in ductile metallic thin films which were subjected to biaxial tensile strains. The void became faceted, grew and relieved strain by the emission of pairs of screw dislocations, having opposite Burgers vectors, from its surface. Repeated dislocation generation and propagation led to the formation of a step-pattern on the film surfaces. A simple phenomenological kinetic model for void growth was developed which could be used to formulate constitutive theories of plastic deformation for the continuum-scale modelling of void evolution.

Molecular-Dynamics Study of the Mechanism and Kinetics of Void Growth in Ductile Metallic Thin Films. M.R.Gungor, D.Maroudas, S.Zhou: Applied Physics Letters, 2000, 77[3], 343-5