Temperature effect on critical shear stress for twin boundary migration

Twin boundary (TB) migration governed by thermal fluctuations is investigated through molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Detailed atomic analysis reveals that TB migration in face-centered-cubic (f.c.c.) metals is a process consisting of nucleation, expansion and annihilation of dislocation loops on successive {1 1 1} planes. The temperature-dependence of TB migration is well captured by a simple model based on the observations.