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Direct visualization of dislocation dynamics in grain-boundary scars

Nature Materials volume 4, pages 407–411 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Mesoscale objects with unusual structural features may serve as the analogues of atoms in the design of larger-scale materials with novel optical, electronic or mechanical behaviour. In this paper we investigate the structural features and the equilibrium dynamics of micrometre-scale spherical crystals formed by polystyrene particles adsorbed on the surface of a spherical water droplet. The ground state of sufficiently large crystals possesses finite-length grain boundaries (scars). We determine the elastic response of the crystal by measuring single-particle diffusion, and quantify the fluctuations of individual dislocations about their equilibrium positions within a scar by determining the dislocation spring constants. We observe rapid dislocation glide with fluctuations over the barriers separating one local Peierls minimum from the next and rather weak binding of dislocations to their associated scars. The long-distance (renormalized) dislocation diffusion glide constant is extracted directly from the experimental data and is found to be moderately faster than single-particle diffusion. We are also able to determine the parameters of the Peierls potential induced by the underlying crystalline lattice.

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Figure 1: A light microscope image of an 85-μm-diameter water droplet coated with 1-μm-diameter polystyrene microspheres.
Figure 2: Mean-squared displacement of single colloidal particles.
Figure 3: Visualization and evaluation of the motion of dislocations bound to a grain-boundary scar.
Figure 4: Plot of the probability distribution of a diffusing defect as a function of position (dotted line).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by BA2029/5 and partly by the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie. The work of M.J.B. and J.H.M. was supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant No. DMR-0219292 (ITR). The work of D.R.N. was supported by the National Science Foundation through the Harvard Material Research Science and Engineering Laboratory through Grant No. DMR-0213805 and Grant No. DMR-0231631. We thank Jörg Schilling for the help he provided with imaging processing and Angelo Cacciuto and James McCullough for the Java Applets containing the triangulation routines. We are grateful for valuable discussions with Alex Travesset and M. Nikolaides.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lehrstuhl für Biophysik E22, TU München, Garching, 85747, Germany

    Peter Lipowsky & Andreas R. Bausch

  2. Physics Department, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, 13244-1130, USA

    Mark J. Bowick & Jan H. Meinke

  3. Lyman Laboratory of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    David R. Nelson

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  1. Peter Lipowsky
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  2. Mark J. Bowick
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  4. David R. Nelson
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Mark J. Bowick or Andreas R. Bausch.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Lipowsky, P., Bowick, M., Meinke, J. et al. Direct visualization of dislocation dynamics in grain-boundary scars. Nature Mater 4, 407–411 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1376

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