Dynamic Interaction between Dislocation and Irradiation-Induced Defects in Stainless Steels during Tensile Deformation

Abstract

A series of in-situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations during tensile deformation were conducted on the ion-irradiated stainless steel. The jerky motion of dislocations appeared, and dislocations were pinned and depinned at the defects through the in-situ TEM observation. The jump distance traveled by dislocation was measured and discussed as the mean interval of defects interacting with the dislocation motion. Microstructural information of irradiation defects such as obstacle interval was obtained by TEM and atom probe tomography (APT), and the type of pinning site was identified. It was found that Frank loops and black dots were irradiation defects that strongly interacted with dislocations. It was suggested that solute atom clusters act as weak obstacles for dislocations in the dynamic interaction behavior with dislocation motion.

Keywords

• stainless steel
• ion irradiation
• irradiation hardening
• transmission electron microscopy
• the in-situ observation
• solute atom cluster