A complete absorption mechanism of stacking fault tetrahedron by screw dislocation in copper

Abstract It was frequently observed in experiments that stacking fault tetrahedron (SFT) can be completely absorbed by dislocation and generate defect-free channels in irradiated materials, but the mechanism is still open. In this paper, molecular dynamics (MD) was used to explore the dislocation mechanism of reaction between SFT and screw dislocation in copper. Our computational results reveal that, at high temperature, the SFT is completely absorbed by screw dislocation with the help of Lomer–Cottrell (LC) lock transforming into Lomer dislocation. This complete absorption mechanism is very helpful to understand the defect-free channels in irradiated materials.