Stacking fault tetrahedra were formed during the irradiation of face-centered cubic metals and alloys with a low stacking-fault energy. The high number-density of stacking-fault tetrahedra suggested that they should contribute to radiation-induced hardening. The key factor was to describe the interaction between a moving dislocation and an individual stacking-fault tetrahedron, which was characterized by a small physical scale of about 100nm. The results were presented here of an atomistic simulation of edge and screw dislocations, interacting with small stacking-fault tetrahedra at various temperatures and strain-rates, and mechanisms were presented which could explain the formation of the defect-free channels which were observed experimentally.

Atomic-Scale Details of Dislocation–Stacking Fault Tetrahedra Interaction. Y.N.Osetsky, R.E.Stoller, D.Rodney, D.J.Bacon: Materials Science and Engineering A, 2005, 400-401, 370-3