The role of the excess volume at the nucleation of plastic deformation in metals

The computer simulation results on the atomic structure of the copper crystallite and its behavior in nanoindentation demonstrate the key role of local structural transformations in nucleation of plasticity. The generation of local structural transformations can be considered as an elementary event during the formation of higher scale defects, including partial dislocations and stacking faults. The cause for local structural transformations, both direct fcc-hcp and reverse hcp-fcc, is an abrupt local increase in atomic volume. A characteristic feature is that the values of local volume jumps in direct and reverse structural transformations are comparable with that in melting and lie in the range 5-7 %.