Formation of a dislocation structure of aluminum single crystals under the action of pressure and gravitational field on the melt

Abstract

The distribution of dislocation density has been investigated experimentally in aluminum single crystals with various concentrations of copper impurity (∼0.0002, 0.005, and 0.05 wt %) that were obtained upon the crystallization of the melt under the action of a pressure and the gravitational-field component directed along the surface of the crystallization front. It has been found that a strong nonuniformity in the dislocation distribution arises in cross sections of the crystals in the direction of the field and this nonuniformity increases with increasing gravitational-field component and decreasing in the impurity concentration and rate of crystallization of the melt. It has been found that the degree of nonuniformity of the dislocation distribution in the crystals substantially depends on the magnitude of pressure at which the crystallization of the melt is realized and reaches a maximum at a certain pressure that is “optimum” for given conditions of the process of phase transformation.