The effect of strain on the microstructure and detailed internal structure of dislocation boundaries in pure polycrystalline face-centered cubic metals (aluminum, copper, nickel and gold) was systematically studied and compared as a function of strain following compression at room temperature. At low strains all metals form a cellular structure. The dislocations in the cell walls tend to rearrange themselves from tangles to ordered arrays of parallel dislocations as the strain was increased. However the rearrangement does not correlate well with the stacking fault energy. A good correlation was found with the cross-slip activation energy.

Evolution of Dislocation Patterns in FCC Metals. P.Landau, R.Z.Shneck, G.Makov, A.Venkert: IOP Conference Series - Materials Science and Engineering, 2009, 3[1], 012004