Using standard imaging techniques of electron microscopy it was not possible to resolve the partial dislocations having the equilibrium separation for dissociated dislocations in pure face-centered cubic metals. Thus the stacking-fault energy could not be determined from direct measurements of the separations of the partials. It was demonstrated here that such determinations were possible using the weak-beam method of electron microscopy. The separations of Shockley partial dislocations in silver were measured, as a function of dislocation line orientation, using this method. From these measurements, a stacking-fault energy of 16.3mJ/m2 was obtained from analyses based upon anisotropic elasticity theory.

The Measurement of Stacking-Fault Energies of Pure Face-Centred Cubic Metals. D.J.H.Cockayne, M.L.Jenkins, I.L.F.Ray: Philosophical Magazine, 1971, 24[192], 1383-92