Fingering Instability of Dislocations and Related Defects
Materials Science
2009-10-31 v1
Abstract
We identify a fundamental morphological instability of mobile dislocations in crystals and related line defects. A positive gradient in the local driving force along the direction of defect motion destabilizes long-wavelength vibrational modes, producing a ``fingering'' pattern. The minimum unstable wavelength scales as the inverse square root of the force gradient. We demonstrate the instability's onset in simulations of a screw dislocation in Al (via molecular dynamics) and of a vortex in a 3-d XY ``rotator'' model.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9808112,
title = {Fingering Instability of Dislocations and Related Defects},
author = {Ming Li and Brian B. Smith and Robin L. B. Selinger},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9808112},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 3 figures