Unambiguous coupling between acoustic and electromagnetic emissions in plastically deformed crystals

An evident coupling between acoustic (AE) and electromagnetic (EME) emissions has been proved experimentally during plastic deformation of LiF ionic monocrystals under uniaxial compression with simultaneous recording of both AE and EME. The strong correlation between AE and EME demonstrate clearly that the observed EME is caused by dynamical dislocations and charged vacancies in the ionic lattice during work hardening. The theoretical interpretation proposed to explain the observable EME is based on the well-known Stepanov effect that means sweeping-up the charged vacancies of a preferable sign by gliding edge dislocations and formation of charged Cottrell clouds. During work hardening dislocation pile-ups are formed, and a certain nonequilibrium charge density is accumulated at their heads, resulting to the dynamic electric polarization of the deformed crystal. As the external loading increases, a locked dislocation pile-up bursts through the stoppers and quickly loses its bound charge. The relaxation of this charge produces intrinsic polarization currents generating electric pulses strongly correlated with dynamic dislocation process during plastic deformation. To build the theoretical model, it is assumed that the relaxation current can be described as an athermic viscous motion of vacancies under the kinetic friction force ∼Bυ (B is the friction coefficient and υ is the vacancy velocity) in a self-consistent electric field determined by the distribution of the total charge density. The electrical signal generated by an acting slip system has been calculated. By comparing the calculated and experimentally measured electric signal patterns, the friction coefficient for the linear chain of vacancies (the analogue of an edge dislocation extra-plane) in LiF has been estimated to be B≃ 0.9⋅10–5 g cm–1⋅s–1. This value is in accordance with the corresponding coefficient for dislocations in ionic lattices.