Crystal Dislocations as Atomic Scale Ratchets
The episode discusses a paper titled "Crystal Dislocations as Atomic Scale Ratchets." Molecular dynamics simulations of FCC nickel showed that dislocations with atomic-scale jogs exhibit asymmetric mobility under opposite stresses, leading to net directional drift during symmetric cyclic loading. This finding suggests that plastic deformation is not perfectly symmetric and opens new avenues for engineering materials with intrinsic lattice ratchets.