Zhu and Team Publish Paper in Nature Communications
Defects such as cracks in a material can be responsible for the failure of structures as big as the nuclear reactors to the smart phones in our pockets. Now researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Pittsburg, Sandia National Laboratories and Zhejiang University (China) have discovered a new type of atomic-scale defect, called stacking fault tetrahedron, that can critically affect the deformation and fracture of pressure vessels in nuclear reactors and interconnects in smart phones.