Effect of Re on stacking fault nucleation under shear strain in Ni by atomistic simulation

The effect of Re on stacking fault (SF) nucleation under shear strain in Ni is investigated using the climbing image nudged elastic band method with a Ni-Al-Re embedded-atom-method potential. A parameter (ΔE_sf^b), the activation energy of SF nucleation under shear strain, is introduced to evaluate the effect of Re on SF nucleation under shear strain. Calculation results show that ΔE_sf^b decreases with Re addition, which means that SF nucleation under shear strain in Ni may be enhanced by Re. The atomic structure observation shows that the decrease of ΔE_sf^b may be due to the expansion of local structure around the Re atom when SF goes through the Re atom.