Imperfection /Defects

Defects in Crystalline Materials

• All real crystals contain imperfections

which may be point, line , surface or
volume defects.
• Which disturb locally the regular
arrangement of the atoms.
• Their presence can significantly modify the
properties of crystalline solids.
 Point defect, or Point
Imperfection
When the deviation
from the periodic
arrangement of the
lattice is localized to
the vicinity of only a
few atoms.
It is called a point
defect, or point
imperfection.
 Line Defect
Line defects obtain their
name because they
propagate as lines or as
a two dimensional net in
the crystal.
The edge and Screw
dislocations are the
common line defects
encountered in
materials.
 Lattice Imperfection
• However if the defects extends through
microscopic region of the crystal, it is
called a lattice imperfection.
• Lattice imperfections may be divided into
Line defects and surface or Plane, defects.
 Surface Defect

• The stacking fault between two closed -

packed regions of the crystal that have
alternate stacking sequences are other
example of surface defects.
 Point Defects

• All the atoms in a perfect lattice are at specific atomic

sites (ignoring thermal vibrations).
• In pure metal two types of point defect are possible,
i) Intrinsic defects ii) Extrinsic defects.
• Intrinsic defects: i) A vacant atomic site or vacancy,
ii) an interstitial atom.
• Vacancy formed by the removal of an atom from an
atomic site .
• Interstitial by the introduction of an atom into a non-
lattice site at 1/2, 1/2, 0 position.
Point Defects
Point Defects
Point Defects
 Vacancy & Interstitial

• It is known that vacancies and interstitials can be

produced in materials by plastic deformation and high-
energy particle irradiation.
• The latter process is particularly important in materials
in nuclear reactor installations.
• The interstitial defect occurs in pure metals as a result
of bombardment with high-energy nuclear particles (
radiation damage), but it does not occur frequently as a
result of thermal activation.
• Further more, intrinsic point defects are introduced into
crystals simply by virtue of temperature, for all
temperature above 0K there is a thermodynamically
stable concentration.
• The formation energy of interstitial is
typically two to four times more than the
formation energy of vacancy.
• Therefore in metals in thermal equilibrium
the concentration of intestinal may be
neglected in comparison with that of
vacancies
 Extrinsic defects
• Extrinsic defects . Impurity atoms in a
crystal can be considered as an extrinsic
point defect. Impurity atoms can take up
two different types of sites.
• Substitutional. An atom of the parent
lattice lying in a lattice site is replaced by
the impurity atom
• Interstitial The impurity atom is at a non-
lattice site
Point Defects
 Dislocation

• Dislocations are important for explaining the slip

of crystals,
• They are also intimately connected with nearly
all other mechanical phenomena such as ,
• The yield point, strain hardening /work
hardening, creep, fatigue, and brittle fracture.
• One way of thinking of a dislocation is to
consider that it is the region of localized
lattice disturbance separating the slipped
and un slipped region of a crystal.
• The two basic types of dislocations :
• Edge dislocation Positive edge dislocation and
negative edge dislocation.
• Screw dislocation;
Two types: Right hand screw and left hand screw
dislocation.
•
 Dislocation Density
• The dislocation density is defined as the total
length of dislocation line per unit volume of
crystal, normally quoted in units of mm-2.
• Thus for a volume V containing line length l,
Density = l/V.
• An alternative definition, the number of
dislocations intersecting a unit area, again
measured in units of mm-2 .
• If all the dislocations are parallel, the two density
values are the same, but for completely random
arrangement the volume density is twice the
surface density.
 Stacking Faults

• A stacking fault is a planer defects ,

• It is a local region in the crystal where the regular
sequence has been interrupted.
• The atomic arrangement on the plane of an fcc structure
and the plane of an hcp structure could be obtained by
the stacking of closed- packed planes of spheres.
• For the fcc structure, the stacking sequence of the
planes of atom is given by ABCABCABC.
• For the hcp structure, the sequence is given by
ABABAB and there is no alternate site for an A layer
resting on B layer.
• For the hcp structure, the sequence is given by
ABABAB and
• There is no alternate site for an A layer resting
on B layer.
• In case of ABCABCABC stacking, A layer can
rest equally well on either B or C position and
• Geometrically there is no reason for the
selection of a particular position.
• Therefore in fcc lattice two types of stacking
fault are possible.
• Either by removal or introduction of stacking
sequence.
• i) Intrinsic stacking fault part of the layer
has been removed which results in a
break of the stacking sequence.
• ii) Extrinsic stacking fault. An extra layer
has been introduced between B and C
layer. There are two breaks in the stacking
sequence.