Micro-twins and stacking faults in plastically deformed aluminium single crystal were successfully observed by high-resolution transmission electron microscope. The occurrence of these micro-twins and stacking faults was directly related to the specially designed crystallographic orientation, because they were not observed in pure aluminium single crystal or polycrystal before. Based upon the new finding above, a universal dislocation-based model was proposed in order to judge the preference or not for the nucleation of deformation twins and stacking faults in various face-centered-cubic metals in terms of the critical stress for dislocation glide or twinning by considering the intrinsic factors, such as stacking fault energy, crystallographic orientation, and grain size. The new finding of deformation induced micro-twins and stacking faults in aluminium single crystal and the proposed model should be of interest to a broad community.

Deformation Induced Microtwins and Stacking Faults in Aluminum Single Crystal. W.Z.Han, G.M.Cheng, S.X.Li, S.D.Wu, Z.F.Zhang: Physical Review Letters, 2008, 101[11], 115505 (4pp)