Crystal Imperfections (or) Defects
An ideal crystal is a regular periodic arrangement of atoms such that
the neighbourhood of every atom is identical to that of every other
similar atom. However the real crystals deviate from this ideal
conditions.
Real crystals are finite and bounded by free surfaces.
• The deviations of atomic arrangements from perfect periodicity
and regularity are known as crystal defects or imperfections.
• Defects also play a major role in determining the physical and
mechanical properties of real crystals.
In fact, many of the useful properties of materials occur due to the
presence of imperfections in them.
In semiconductor industry, electronic properties of pure silicon,
gallium arsenide, etc., are altered suitably by adding impurities,
called dopants, such as boron and arsenic by a process called
doping.
Steel is an alloy in which carbon (and also other elements in
smaller concentrations) is present as interstitial impurity in the
lattice of iron atoms.
Classification of crystal imperfection (or) defects
Zero dimensional (or) point Defects are associated with one or two
atomic positions and hence have zero spatial dimensions.
Examples: Vacancies
Interstitials &
Impurities.
One dimensional (or) line defects are lines around which there exist
misalignments of atoms. They are also called dislocations.
Line defects are mainly of two types: Edge dislocations
Screw dislocations
Two dimensional (or) surface defects can be free surfaces, grain
boundaries, twin boundaries and stacking faults, which have two
spatial dimensions associated with them.
Three Dimensional (or) volume defects or bulk defects are
the presence of different phases of the material, inclusions of
other materials, presence of pores and cracks, etc., in a crystalline
specimen.
Frenkel Defects
A Frenkel defect is a vacancy-interstitial ion pair formed when a host
ion is relocated into an interstitial position, leaving a vacancy at its
original site.
Schottky Defects
• A Schottky defect consists of a missing anion-cation pair. Since a
pair is missing charge neutrality is maintained.
• Schottky defects play an important role in the electrical and optical
properties of alkali halides such as NaCl, KCl, etc.
Interstitial Defects
When an extra atom occupies interstitial space (i,.e., voids) within
the crystal structure without removing parent atom, the defect is
called interstitial.
A Self-interstitial atom is an atom from the crystal that occupies an
interstitial void space which is not ordinarily occupied.
Since interstitial voids are smaller than the atoms, self-interstitials
introduce large crystal distortions around the vicinity of the defect.
Presence of substantial number of interstitial atoms can change the
mechanical and thermal properties of the solid.
An impurity is a foreign atom that either replaces an
original atom at a lattice site or occupies an
interstitial site.
• Substitutional Defect occurs when the original atom in the lattice site of a
crystalline solid is replaced by a different type of atom.
Line Defects
The defects due to dislocations or distortion of atoms along a line is
known as line defects.
Line defects are mainly of two types: Edge dislocations
Screw dislocations
Edge dislocations results from a mismatch in the rows (or columns) of
atoms, due to a half-plane of atoms inserted in a crystal structure.
The line that forms the edge of the half plane is actually the edge
dislocation. This line is also called the dislocation line.
• When the half-plane is inserted into the upper half of a crystal,
the resulting dislocation line and its position are denoted by the
symbol
• The dislocation line due to an extra half plane of atoms
introduced into the bottom half is denoted by the symbol .
• Line defects are characterised by a vector called Burgers vector.
• The magnitude and the direction of the displacement due to edge
dislocation are defined by a vector called Burgers vector.
• The displacement vector from the
point F to the point S is the Burgers
vector b.
• This vector represents the magnitude
and direction of the line defect.
• For the edge dislocation, the Burgers
vector is perpendicular to the
dislocation line.
Screw dislocations is due to displacement of atoms in one part of a
crystal relative to the rest of the crystal forming a spiral ramp around
the dislocation line.
Burgers vector of a screw dislocation
is parallel to its dislocation line.
Surface Defects (Plane Defects)
• Most commonly occurring two dimensional or surface defects are
external surfaces, grain boundaries, twin boundaries, phase
boundaries, and stacking faults.
A Grain boundary separates
two small grains having
different crystallographic
orientations in polycrystalline
material.
• This mismatch of crystallographic orientations can be
represented in terms of the angle of misalignment between lines
of close-packing of atoms in the adjacent grains.
• When the angle of misalignment is only a few degrees, the
corresponding grain boundary is called a small angle or low angle
grain boundary.
• On the other hand, if the angle of misalignment (difference in the
orientation directions is greater than 10 ̊ ) is substantial across a
grain boundary, it is known as a high angle grain boundary.
Twin boundary
• Twin boundaries are types of planar surface defects. The atomic
arrangement on one side of a twin boundary is a mirror image of
the arrangement on the other side.
• Twin boundaries occur in pairs. Such that the orientation change
introduced by one boundary is restored by the other.
Stacking Fault
Stacking fault is a surface defect occurring due to the improper
stacking sequence of close-packed atomic planes.
• The stacking sequence ABABAB . . . leads to the formation of an
HCP crystal structure while the sequence ABCABCABC . . . leads to
the FCC structure.
