The search for deformation mechanisms in nanocrystalline metals has profited from the use of molecular dynamics calculations. These simulations have revealed two possible mechanisms; grain boundary accommodation, and intragranular slip involving dislocation emission and absorption at grain boundaries. But the precise nature of the slip mechanism is the subject of considerable debate, and the limitations of the simulation technique need to be taken into consideration. Here we show, using molecular dynamics simulations, that the nature of slip in nanocrystalline metals cannot be described in terms of the absolute value of the stacking fault energy-a correct interpretation requires the generalized stacking fault energy curve, involving both stable and unstable stacking fault energies. The molecular dynamics technique does not at present allow for the determination of rate-limiting processes, so the use of our calculations in the interpretation of experiments has to be undertaken with care.

We investigate the structure and mobility of single self-interstitial atom and vacancy defects in bodycentered-cubic transition metals forming groups 5B ͑vanadium, niobium, and tantalum͒ and 6B ͑chromium, molybdenum, and tungsten͒ of the Periodic Table. Density-functional calculations show that in all these metals the axially symmetric ͗111͘ self-interstitial atom configuration has the lowest formation energy. In chromium, the difference between the energies of the ͗111͘ and the ͗110͘ self-interstitial configurations is very small, making the two structures almost degenerate. Local densities of states for the atoms forming the core of crowdion configurations exhibit systematic widening of the "local" d band and an upward shift of the antibonding peak. Using the information provided by electronic structure calculations, we derive a family of Finnis-Sinclair-type interatomic potentials for vanadium, niobium, tantalum, molybdenum, and tungsten. Using these potentials, we investigate the thermally activated migration of self-interstitial atom defects in tungsten. We rationalize the results of simulations using analytical solutions of the multistring Frenkel-Kontorova model describing nonlinear elastic interactions between a defect and phonon excitations. We find that the discreteness of the crystal lattice plays a dominant part in the picture of mobility of defects. We are also able to explain the origin of the non-Arrhenius diffusion of crowdions and to show that at elevated temperatures the diffusion coefficient varies linearly as a function of absolute temperature.

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We study the thermal relaxation of artificial spin ice with photoemission electron microscopy, and are able to directly observe how such a system finds its way from an energetically excited state to the ground state. On plotting vertex-type populations as a function of time, we can characterize the relaxation, which occurs in two stages, namely a string and a domain regime. Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations agree well with the temporal evolution of the magnetic state when including disorder, and the experimental results can be explained by considering the effective interaction energy associated with the separation of pairs of vertex excitations.

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We develop a semi-empirical many-body interatomic potential suitable for large scale molecular dynamics simulations of magnetic α-iron. The functional form of the embedding part of the potential is derived using a combination of the Stoner and the Ginzburg-Landau models. We show that it is the symmetry broken solutions of the Ginzburg-Landau model describing spontaneous magnetization of atoms that provide the link between magnetism and interatomic forces. We discuss a range of potential applications of the new method.

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