Models for size-dependent plastic flow

For even a relatively small number of interacting dislocations which have independent degrees of freedom in a thin film system, the behavior becomes very complex. In order to deal with this complexity, Nicola et al. (2003) reformulated the problem of dislocation formation and interaction in a strained single crystal thin film to allow for determination of its features by numerical methods. A single crystal thin film on an elastic substrate was considered to deform under plane strain conditions. Edge dislocations 

As has been noted, plastic deformation of a metal film consists largely of driving dislocations through the film toward the film-substrate interface. TEM observations of the interfaces of plastically deformed films show that interface dislocations are present in some cases but not in others. It was also reported that interface dislocations disappear during TEM imaging (Milliner and Arzt 1998). In virtually all cases, the substrate material is not de- 

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