Dislocation arrangements in cyclically deformed Au single crystal

Cyclic deformation was carried out on [ 2 ¯   2   7 ] Au single crystal at plastic resolved strain amplitudes of 1.11 × 10−3 and 2.22 × 10−3 with a cyclic saturation stress of 23.4 MPa. Persistent slip bands (PSBs) were also found in the cyclically saturated specimens. In comparison with the fatigue-induced dislocation arrangements of other fcc metals, such as Cu, Ni and Ag, two basic criteria for determining whether the ladder-like PSBs form or not were proposed. Besides PSBs, the vein, wall and labyrinth structure also appeared in cyclically deformed [ 2 ¯   2   7 ] Au single crystals. Experimental results show that cyclic deformation behaviors of Au single crystals are very similar to those of Cu, Ni and Ag single crystals, which will become the important and fundamental basis to determine the cyclic deformation mechanism of fcc single crystal.