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Measuring nonlinear stresses generated by defects in 3D colloidal crystals

Nature Materials volume 15, pages 1172–1176 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

The mechanical, structural and functional properties of crystals are determined by their defects1,2,3,4, and the distribution of stresses surrounding these defects has broad implications for the understanding of transport phenomena. When the defect density rises to levels routinely found in real-world materials, transport is governed by local stresses that are predominantly nonlinear1,5,6,7,8. Such stress fields however, cannot be measured using conventional bulk and local measurement techniques. Here, we report direct and spatially resolved experimental measurements of the nonlinear stresses surrounding colloidal crystalline defect cores, and show that the stresses at vacancy cores generate attractive interactions between them. We also directly visualize the softening of crystalline regions surrounding dislocation cores, and find that stress fluctuations in quiescent polycrystals are uniformly distributed rather than localized at grain boundaries, as is the case in strained atomic polycrystals. Nonlinear stress measurements have important implications for strain hardening9, yield1,5 and fatigue10.

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Figure 1: Particle-level stress measurements (SALSA).
Figure 2: Stress around a vacancy.
Figure 3: Dislocation stress.
Figure 4: Stress near grain boundaries.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank F. Spaepen, J. Schiøtz, T. Lubensky and the Cohen laboratory for useful discussions. J.P.S. and M.B. acknowledge funding from Department of Energy DOE-BES DE-FG02-07ER46393. P.S. acknowledges support by a VICI grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). I.C. and N.Y.C.L. were supported by NSF DMR-CMP Award No. 1507607.

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Author notes

  1. Neil Y. C. Lin and Matthew Bierbaum: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA

    Neil Y. C. Lin, Matthew Bierbaum, James P. Sethna & Itai Cohen

  2. Institute of Physics, University of Amsterdam, PO Box 94485, 1090 GL, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Peter Schall

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  1. Neil Y. C. Lin
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Contributions

N.Y.C.L., M.B., J.P.S. and I.C. conceived and designed the research, with later contributions from P.S.; N.Y.C.L. conducted the vacancy and polycrystal experiments, and P.S. conducted the dislocation experiment. M.B. conducted the simulations and developed the underlying theory. N.Y.C.L. and M.B. analysed the data. All authors discussed the results and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Neil Y. C. Lin.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Lin, N., Bierbaum, M., Schall, P. et al. Measuring nonlinear stresses generated by defects in 3D colloidal crystals. Nature Mater 15, 1172–1176 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4715

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