Elastic instability of slip traces in oxidized thin foils

Parallel slip traces are often observed in transmission electron microscopy of oxidized and deformed thin foils, but apparently they have not been reported for foils with thicknesses less than a few tens of nanometers. This situation can be explained by an elastic instability of a dislocation dipole for foil thicknesses lower than a critical threshold value. This value is derived from the knowledge of the elastic field of a dislocation in a three-layer laminated medium and the minimization of the elastic potential energy of the thin foil. (c) 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.