Sculpting crystals one Burgers vector at a time: Toward colloidal lattice robot swarms.

ABSTRACT: Plastic deformation of crystalline materials with isotropic particle attractions proceeds by the creation and migration of dislocations under the influence of external forces. If dislocations are produced and migrated under the action of local forces, then material shape change can occur without the application of surface forces. We investigate how particles with variable diameters can be embedded in colloidal monolayers to produce dislocations on demand. We find in simulation that when embedded clusters of variable diameter particles are taken through multiple cycles of swelling and shrinking, large cumulative plastic slip is produced by the creation and biased motion of dislocation pairs in the solid for embedded clusters of particular geometries. In this way, dislocations emitted by the

SUBMITTER: VanSaders B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7826390 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature