Dislocation “Bubble-Like-Effect” and the Ambient Temperature Super-plastic Elongation of Body-centred Cubic Single Crystalline Molybdenum

Abstract

With our recently developed deformation device, the in situ tensile tests of single crystal molybdenum nanowires with various size and aspect ratio were conducted inside a transmission electron microscope (TEM). We report an unusual ambient temperature (close to room temperature) super-plastic elongation above 127% on single crystal body-centred cubic (bcc) molybdenum nanowires with an optimized aspect ratio and size. A novel dislocation "bubble-like-effect" was uncovered for leading to the homogeneous, large and super-plastic elongation strain in the bcc Mo nanowires. The dislocation bubble-like-effect refers to the process of dislocation nucleation and annihilation, which likes the nucleation and annihilation process of the water bubbles. A significant plastic deformation dependence on the sample's aspect ratio and size was revealed. The atomic scale TEM observations also demonstrated that a single crystal to poly-crystal transition and a bcc to face-centred cubic phase transformation took place, which assisted the plastic deformation of Mo in small scale.