IMPERFECTIONS IN

CRYSTALS
INTRODUCTION:

What is Crystal?

 Crystals are made up of

atoms, ions or molecules
which are periodically and
regularly arranged in 3
dimensions such that
environment of each one of
them is identical to every
other atoms, ions or
molecules in a lattice.

 The examples are

Diamond, Graphite, NaCl, Si, Ge
etc.
All crystals are not totally or
completely perfect crystals.
There is always a deviation from
perfect periodicity of atomic
deviation.
Deviation from perfect periodicity
is known as imperfection.

Perfect Crystal lattice

associated with atoms

Lattice Defect or
Imperfection
An important feature of crystals is their
regular atomic arrangement but no crystal is
perfectly regular.
Any deviation from this perfect atomic
periodicity is called an imperfection or lattice
defect.
A lattice defect is a state in which the
atomic arrangement in the small region
(of a size of only a few lattice constants)
of a crystal has departed from regularity.

Structure sensitive and

insensitive properties
On the basis of perfect atomic periodicity
of crystals
The properties like
density,
dielectric capacity,
specific heats and
elastic properties of the lattice can be
explained. Such properties are called
structure insensitive properties.

Structure sensitive
properties
Lattice defects or atomic imperfections
arising due to irregularities of atomic
arrays in the crystals, affect greatly
the following Physical properties:
The properties like color of the
crystal, diffusion in a crystal and
crystal growth process

Electrical properties gets

affected
The electrical resistance of the
crystal is greatly affected.
These defects scatter the conduction
electrons in a metal and thus
increase its electrical resistance.
Especially in case of alloys this
increase in electrical resistance is
several tens of percentage.

Elastic properties get

affected
The strength of crystals:
Certain kinds of defects exist very
rarely but they decrease the strength
of the crystal by a factor of several
hundreds or thousands
Such properties that are greatly
affected by the defects are called
defect or structure sensitive
properties.

CLASSIFICATION OF
IMPERFECTIONS
There are three types of
imperfections exist in general.
(A) Crystal Imperfections or
atomic
imperfections)
(B) Electronic Imperfections
(C) Transient Imperfections

(A) Crystal Imperfections (or

atomic imperfections) :
Concerned with this types of imperfections. To list them they are:

(1)
Thermal vibrations,
(2)

Point defects,
(i)
(ii)
(iii)

Vacancies,
Interstitials,
Isolated impurities.

(3)Line defects; the dislocation: Edge and Screw dislocations,

(4)

Surface defects,
(i) External surfaces of solids
(ii) Internal surfaces; grain boundaries and other internal
boundaries.

(B) Electronic
Imperfections:
They are the defects in electronic
structure e.g.,
(i) conduction electron
(ii) hole,
which are excited thermally from filled
bands or impurity levels.
These defects are responsible for
important electrical and magnetic
properties,

(C) Transient
Imperfections :
These defects are introduced into the
crystal from external sources and are, for
example
(i) Photons are bombarded on crystals
(ii) Beam of charged particles like
electrons, protons, and mesons etc.
(iii) Beam of neutral particles e.g.,
neutrons and neutral atoms.
Are bombarded on crystals.

Different types of point defects

in crystals

Vacancy

Point defects in ionic

crystals

CRYSTALLOGRAPHIC
IMPERFECTIONS:

To discuss the defects that arise due to

the departure from perfect periodicity
of an atomic array in a crystal
the so called lattice defects.
They can then be classified according
as the periodic regularity is interrupted
in zero, one, two and three dimensions.

(1) Point Defects:

A lattice defect which spreads out very
little in (zero dimension) is called a point
defect.
They are of following types:
(i) Interstitial atoms
(ii) Vacancy also known as Schottky
defects
(iii)Impurity atom
(iv) Interstitial + Vacancy = Frenkel defects

(i) Interstitial atom:

This is an extra atom inserted into
the voids (called interstice of the
lattice) between the regularly
occupied sites.
Thus such an atom does not occupy
regular lattice sites.
This extra atom may be an impurity
atom or an atom of the same types
as on the regular lattice sites.

(ii) Vacancies :
These are the lattice sites from which the
atoms are missing.
Such a vacancy is also called Schottky defect.
But if a vacancy is created by transferring an
atom from a regular lattice site to an
interstitial position then it is called Frenkel
defect.
In this case, therefore, - two imperfections are
createdvacancy as well as an interstitial
atom.

Point defects in elemental

solids

Frenkel defects in ionic

crystals

Cation and Anion vacancy

(iii) Impurity atom :

This is a defect in which a foreign
atom occupies a regular lattice site.

Point defects
The simplest point defects are as follows:
Vacancy missing atom at a certain
crystal lattice position;
Interstitial impurity atom extra
impurity atom in an interstitial position;
Self-interstitial atom extra atom in an
interstitial position;
Substitution impurity atom impurity
atom, substituting an atom in crystal
lattice;
Frenkel defect extra self-interstitial
atom, responsible for the vacancy nearby.

Line defects
Linear crystal defects are edge and
screw dislocations.
Edge dislocation is an extra half
plane of atoms inserted into the
crystal lattice.
Due to the edge dislocations metals
possess high plasticity characteristics:
ductility and malleability.

Screw Dislocation
Screw dislocation forms when one part
of crystal lattice is shifted (through
shear) relative to the other crystal part.
It is called screw as atomic planes form a
spiral surface around the dislocation line.
For quantitative characterization of a
difference between a crystal distorted by
a dislocation and the perfect crystal the
Burgers vector is used.

 The dislocation density is a total

length of dislocations in a unit
crystal volume.
The dislocation density of
annealed metals is about 1010 1012 m.
After work hardening the
dislocation density increases up to
1015-1016 m-.
Further increase of dislocation
density causes cracks formation
and fracture.

(2) Line Defects:

When a lattice defect is
confined to a small region in
one dimension, it is called a
line defect. In this type of
defect, called dislocation, part
of the lattice undergoes a
shearing strain equal to one
lattice vector (called a

 They are of two types :

(1) Edge dislocation : This type
of dislocation is created by a
missing half plane of atoms.
(ii) Screw dislocation : It can be
thought of as created by cutting
the crystal part way and
shearing down one part relative
to other by one atomic spacing.

Planar defects

Planar defect is an
imperfection in the form of
a plane between uniform
parts of the material. The
most important planar
defect is a grain boundary.

 Formation of a boundary between two

grains may be imagined as a result of
rotation of crystal lattice of one of them
about a specific axis. Depending on the
rotation axis direction, two ideal types
of a grain boundary are possible:
Tilt boundary rotation axis is
parallel to the boundary plane;
Twist boundary - rotation axis is
perpendicular to the boundary plane:
An actual boundary is a mixture of
these two ideal types.

 Grain boundaries are called largeangle boundaries if misorientation of

two neighboring grains exceeds 1015.
Grain boundaries are called smallangle boundaries if misorientation of
two neighboring grains is 5 or less.
Tilt boundary rotation axis is parallel
to the boundary plane;
Twist boundary - rotation axis is
perpendicular to the boundary plane:
An actual boundary is a mixture of
these two ideal types.

 Grains, divided by small-angle

boundaries are also called subgrains.
Grain boundaries accumulate crystal
lattice defects (vacancies, dislocations)
and other imperfections, therefore they
effect on the metallurgical processes,
occurring in alloys and their properties.
Since the mechanism of metal
deformation is a motion of crystal
dislocations through the lattice, grain
boundaries, enriched with dislocations,
play an important role in the
deformation process.

 Diffusion along grain boundaries is

much faster, than throughout the
grains.
Segregation of impurities in form of
precipitating phases in the boundary
regions causes a form of corrosion,
associated with chemical attack of
grain boundaries. This corrosion is
called Intergranular corrosion.

(3) Plane Defects:

When a lattice defect is confined to a
small region only in two dimensions;
it is called a plane defect.
When line defects cluster together in
a plane, they can form a plane which
is described as follows :

 (i) Lineage Boundary:

It is boundary between two adjacent perfect
regions in the same crystal that are slightly
tilted with respect to each other.
(ii) Grain boundary:
A crystal is made up of a large number of
small grains or crystallites which are single
crystals, (i.e., all molecules in a crystallite
are oriented in the same direction).
Generally, these crystallites in. the crystal of
a solid remain oriented indiscriminately in
random directions unless special precautions
are taken during the crystal growth. Such
crystals are called polycrystalline. Grain

(iii) Stacking fault:

It is possible for mistakes to occur in the
stacking sequence of hexagonal close
packed layers. The plane separating the two
incorrectly juxtaposed layers is called
stacking fault.

We take the blue atoms

as the base plane for
what we are going to
built on it, we will call it
the "A - plane".
The next layer will have
the center of the atoms
right over the
depressions of the A plane; it could be either
the B - or C configuration. Here the
pink layer is in the "B"

If you pick the B configuration (and whatever

you pick at this stage, we
can always call it the B configuration), the third
layer can either be directly
over the A - plane and then
is also an A - plane (shown
for one atom), or in the C If you chose "A"; you obtain theconfiguration.
If you chose "C", you get the
hexagonal close packed lattice
face centered cubic lattice
(hcp),
(fcc)
The stacking sequences of the two
close-packed lattices therefore are

fcc: ABCABCABCA...
hcp: ABABABA...

You can't have it both ways. If

you start in the C position

somewhere (in the

picture the green atoms) and on
the A position somewhere else
(light blue), you will get a
problem as soon as the two
layers meet.

For varieties sake, and to be able to

distinguish the layers better, the bottom A
layer here is in dark blue.

Optical annealing of a
linear phase slip.
(a)Diagram of the
defective region. The
region corresponding to
the stacking fault/phase
slip is shaded in.
(b)The same field of view,
after annealing. The
shaded region represents
the same region as the the
shaded region in (a).