LVII. Creep in metal crystals at very low temperatures

Abstract

A theory is given of creep in metallic single crystals at very low temperatures, which is based on the hypothesis that dislocations can pass through barriers, such as those provided by dislocations crossing the slip plane, owing to the quantum-mechanical tunnel effect. A detailed theory would depend on a knowledge of the atomic arrangements at the centre of a dislocation, which in this case does not exist, but a rough calculation shows that creep should be independent of temperature below about 10°K in cadmium.