Cross slip

In face centered cubic (FCC) metals, screw dislocations can cross-slip from one {111} type plane to another.

Shear stresses then may drive the dislocation to extend and move onto the cross-slip plane.

[2] Cross-slip is important to plasticity, since it allows additional slip planes to become active and allows screw dislocations to bypass obstacles.

Therefore, some methods of increasing the yield stress of a material such as solid solution strengthening are less effective because due to cross slip they do not block the motion of screw dislocations.

[6] Cross slip also plays an important role in dynamic recovery (stage III work hardening) by promoting annihilation of screw dislocations and then movement of screw dislocations into a lower energy arrangement.

The screw component of a mixed dislocation loop can move to another slip plane, called the cross-slip plane. Here the Burgers vector is along the intersection of the planes.