Plastic strain rate quantified from dislocation dynamics in dusty plasma shear flows.

Abstract

Dynamics of dislocations and defects are investigated in 2D dusty plasma experiments with two counterpropagating flows. It is experimentally demonstrated that the Orowan equation is able to accurately determine the plastic strain rate from the motion of dislocations, well agreeing with the shear rate defined from the drift velocity gradient. For a higher shear rate, the studied system is in the liquidlike flow state, as a result, the determined shear rate from the Orowan equation deviates from its definition. The obtained probability distribution function of dislocations from the experiments clearly shows that the dislocation motion can be divided into the local and gliding ones. All findings above are further verified by the corresponding Langevin dynamical simulations with various levels of shear rates. The dislocation and defect analysis results from these simulations clearly indicate that the defect and dislocation dynamics in the sheared dusty plasmas clearly exhibit two stages as the shear rate increases.