A phase field model for dislocation climb

We propose a phase field method to model consistently dislocation climb by vacancy absorption or emission. It automatically incorporates the exact balance between the vacancy flux and the phase field associated with the dislocation evolution, enforced by the conserved character of the total population of vacancies. One of its major advantage is the natural introduction of a dynamic coefficient controlling the kinetics of vacancy emission/absorption by the dislocation. We also derived a closed-form expression of the climb rate valid from the diffusion-limited to the attachment-limited regimes. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.