Some properties of crystals of silver chloride containing traces of copper chlorides

Abstract

A number of properties of crystals of silver chloride containing traces of copper chlorides have been investigated with the microscope. It has been found that the dislocations remaining after annealing in crystals which contained originally 0.1 mol % of cupric chloride are decorated by the separation of a second phase during cooling. Crystals containing cuprous chloride have a high photosensitivity but the products of photochemical change fade on storage. Valuable observations have been made on arrays of dislocations in well annealed and recrystallized specimens and on dislocations introduced by plastic deformation. With these crystals it has been possible to demonstrate that the space required for the separation of further silver atoms upon a silver particle inside the crystal is made available by the formation of prismatic dislocation loops which glide away from the interface between the particle and the surrounding crystal. This is a new phenomenon in the physics of the solid state which has not been previously described.