Correlations between disorientations in neighbouring dislocation boundaries

During plastic deformation, dislocation structures develop with regions of different orientations separated by dislocation boundaries. Experimental in vestigations by means of electron back-scattering diffraction or rocking cu rves from X-ray diffraction give some evidence for the existence of correla tions between the disorientations in neighbouring boundaries. Based on a st raightforward statistical model an occurrence of anti-correlations between disorientation angles is predicted which can be traced to the limited free path of mobile dislocations carrying the plastic deformation. (C) 2000 Acta Metallurgica Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.