Point defect: also interactions

Some good papers have been published recently. Unfortunately the corresponding experimental data are most often lacking. The point-defect properties calculated from the electronic structure will have to be integrated in a proper thermodynamic theory. Such knowledge will also allow study in important fields that are practically unexplored up to now in intermetallic compounds point defect-impurity interaction, point defect-dislocation interaction, and consequences on the mechanical properties, etc. Considerable work is still required. 

Two German physical chemists, W. Sehottky and C. Wagner, founded this branch of materials seience. The story is very clearly set out in a biographical memoir of Carl Wagner (1901 1977) by another pioneer solid-state chemist, Hermann Schmalzried (1991), and also in Wagner s own survey of point defects and their interaction (Wagner 1977) - his last publieation. Sehottky we have already briefly met in connection with the Pohl school s study of colour centres... 

For the deformation of NiAl in a soft orientation our calculations give by far the lowest Peierls barriers for the (100) 011 glide system. This glide system is also found in many experimental observations and generally accepted as the primary slip system in NiAl [18], Compared to previous atomistic modelling [6], we obtain Peierls stresses which are markedly lower. The calculated Peierls stresses (see table 1) are in the range of 40-150 MPa which is clearly at the lower end of the experimental low temperature deformation data [18]. This may either be attributed to an insufficiency of the interaction model used here or one may speculate that the low temperature deformation of NiAl is not limited by the Peierls stresses but by the interaction of the dislocations with other obstacles (possibly point defects and impurities). 

Edge dislocations play an important role in the strength of a metal, and screw dislocations are important in crystal growth. Dislocations also interact strongly with other defects in the crystal and can act as sources and sinks of point defects. 

There is increasing experimental evidence for the superlattice ordering of vacant sites or interstitial atoms as a result of interactions between them. Superlattice ordering of point defects has been found in metal halides, oxides, sulphides, carbides and other systems, and the relation between such ordering and nonstoichiometry has been reviewed extensively (Anderson, 1974, 1984 Anderson Tilley, 1974). Superlattice ordering of point defects is also found in alloys and in some intermetallic compounds (Gleiter, 1983). We shall examine the features of some typical systems to illustrate this phenomenon, which has minimized the relevance of isolated point defects in many of the chemically interesting solids. 

This interaction arises from the overlap of the deformation fields around both defects. For weakly anisotropic cubic crystals and isotropic point defects, the long-range (dipole-dipole) contribution obeys equation (3.1.4) with a(, ip) oc [04] (i.e., the cubic harmonic with l = 4). In other words, the elastic interaction is anisotropic. If defects are also anisotropic, which is the case for an H centre (XJ molecule), in alkali halides or crowdions in metals, there is little hope of getting an analytical expression for a [35]. The calculation of U (r) for F, H pairs in a KBr crystal has demonstrated [36] that their attraction energy has a maximum along an (001) axis with (110) orientation of the H centre reaching for 1 nn the value -0.043 eV. However, in other directions their elastic interaction was found to be repulsive. 

Charged point defects on regular lattice positions can also contribute to additional losses the translation invariance, which forbids the interaction of electromagnetic waves with acoustic phonons, is perturbed due to charged defects at random positions. Such single-phonon processes are much more effective than the two- or three phonon processes discussed before, because the energy of the acoustic branches goes to zero at the T point of the Brillouin zone. Until now, only a classical approach to account for these losses exists, which has been... 

The concept of a defect has undergone considerable evolution over the course of the last century. The simplest notion of a defect is a mistake at normal atom site in a solid. These stmcturally simple defects are called point defects. Not long after the recognition of point defects, the concept of linear defects, dislocations, was invoked to explain the mechanical properties of metals. In later years, it became apparent that planar defects, including surfaces, and volume defects such as rods, tubes, or precipitates, also have important roles to play in influencing the physical and chemical properties of the host matrix. More recently, it has become apparent that interactions between point defects are of considerable importance, and the simple model of isolated point defects is often inadequate with... 

At low temperatures, where diffusion in the solid state is unimportant, dislocations move principally by the process of slip (or glide) and may interact with other dislocations which move either in the same or in intersecting planes. Various kinds of lattice imperfections are introduced by such movement, and we shall discuss their identity in this subsection. At higher temperatures dislocation may anneal out by a process of annihilation resulting from slip. Moreover, since diffusion of individual species is now easier, important kinds of interaction between line and point defects are possible. These phenomena are also outlined below. 

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