Screw dislocation dipoles in niobium: combination of STM observations and atomistic simulations

We recently developed an experimental device that allows us to observe the slip traces under stress at the atomic scale. Here, we report experimental results obtained at the latter scale on Nb single crystals making it possible to observe dislocation dipoles, which are evidenced by two slip traces formed by emerging moving dislocations of opposite Burgers vectors ending very close to each other. The geometry and stability of the dislocation dipoles were fully characterized in the framework of linear anisotropic elasticity theory and by atomistic simulations. This allows us to calculate a local opposite stress impeding dislocation motion of the dislocations of the dipole.