Are Dislocations Possible in Nanoparticles?

The deformation behavior of nanoscale metals continues to be an exciting area for materials research. However, in the case of single crystal 0-D nanoscale metals, no deformation experiments, to our knowledge, have been performed at the nanoscale. The one experiment closest to the nanoscale was an in-situ TEM compression of ~200 nm Si nanoparticles. However, the particle tested was too large to extract relevant information at the nanoscale and the mechanical deformation of Si is also expected to be different from that of metals. For nanoparticles it is claimed there is a conspicuous lack of dislocations, regardless of the materials processing history, even after significant deformation. Therefore, it has been suggested that dislocations cannot exist or/ do not play a role on the deformation of 0-D nanomaterials. To address this issue of the role played by dislocations in the deformation of 0-D nanomaterials, nanoparticles with diameters