In situ TEM observations and molecular dynamics simulations of deformation defect activities in Mg via nanoindentation

In this work, we performed in situ nanoindentation in TEM to capture the real-time 〈c + a〉 dislocation and twinning activities in pure Mg during loading and unloading. We demonstrated that the screw component of 〈c + a〉 dislocations glides continuously, while the edge components rapidly become sessile during loading. The twin tip propagation is intermittent, whereas the twin boundary migration is more continuous. During unloading, we observed the elastic strain relaxation causes both 〈c + a〉 dislocation retraction and detwinning. Moreover, we note that the plastic zone comprised of 〈c + a〉 dislocations in Mg is well-defined, which contrasts with the diffused plastic zones observed in face-centered cubic metals under the nanoindentation impressions. Additionally, molecular dynamics simulations were performed to study the formation and evolution of deformation-induced crystallographic defects at the early stages of indentation. We observed that, in addition to 〈a〉 dislocations, the I1 stacking fault bounded with a 〈1/2c+p〉 Frank loop can be generated from the plastic zone ahead of the indenter, and potentially serve as a nucleation source for abundant 〈c + a〉 dislocations observed experimentally. These new findings are anticipated to provide new knowledge on the deformation mechanisms of Mg, which are difficult to obtain through conventional ex situ approaches. These observations may serve as a baseline for simulation work that investigate the dynamics of 〈c + a〉 dislocation slip and twinning in Mg and alloys.