Dislocation-Mediated Deformation in Solid Langmuir Monolayers: Plastic Bending and Tilt Boundary

The shear response of three types of textures (mosaic, striation, and stripe) in 10,12-pentacosadiynoic acid solid Langmuir monolayers has been investigated with Brewster angle microscopy. Low temperature mosaic textures respond to an applied stress elastically. Upon the application of shear the change of contrast appears in the form of propagation of fronts roughly perpendicularly to the shear direction within a single domain reversibly, while the domain shape keeps constant since it is presumably frozen kinetically. The striation and stripe textures at high temperatures show a viscoplastic behavior (plastic bending) in its rheological response, being consistent with the formation of a dislocation wall (tilt boundary) through dislocation dynamics (dislocation glide and climb). The stress-induced formation of a tilt boundary provides a manifestation of the collective motion of a number of dislocations.