SELF-REPAIR OF MONOLAYERS WITH VACANCY DAMAGE

Lennard-Jones monolayers are shown by molecular dynamics simulation to exhibit a self-healing behavior which involves a rapid condensation of vacancies into dislocation dipoles. An associated collapse of the shear modulus similar to the Kosterlitz-Thouless dipole dissociation occurs for high vacancy concentrations. By contrast monolayers having nearest neighbor piecewise linear interactions are found to cavitate by agglomeration of vacancies into clusters.