Statistics of twinning in strained ferroelastics

In this review, we show that the evolution of the microstructure and kinetics of ferroelastic crystals under external shear can be explored by computer simulations of 2D model materials. We find that the nucleation and propagation of twin boundaries in ferroelastics depend sensitively on temperature. In the plastic regime, the evolution of the ferroelastic microstructure under strain deformation maintains a stick-and-slip mechanism in all temperature regimes, whereas the dynamic behavior changes dramatically from power-law statistics at low temperature to a Kohlrausch law at intermediate temperature, and then to a Vogel-Fulcher law at high temperature. In the yield regime, the distribution of jerk energies follows power-law statistics in all temperature regimes for a large range of strain rates. The non-spanning avalanches in the yield regime follow a parabolic temporal profile. The changes of twin pattern and twin boundaries density represent an important step towards domain boundary engineering.