Escape of Dislocations from Bound States by Tunneling

Abstract

At low temperatures stress‐activated plastic flow occurs in solids. A quantum‐mechanical tunneling model for this process is discussed which leads to an exponential dependence of the rate on the stress: rate ∼e^−K/σ. The model can be applied either to locally bound kinks or to segments bound to point defects. The temperature dependence of the process is also discussed.