Strain Avalanches in Microsized Single Crystals: A Theoretical Study of the Relation between the Avalanche Size and Duration

Single crystal micropillars deform via a sequence of discrete strain avalanches, observed as displacement jumps or stress drops. Here we develop a simple crystal plasticity model to provide a quantitative expression of the relation between avalanche duration and avalanche size. It is found that the avalanche durations in scale with the averaged avalanche sizes only hold for those larger magnitudes. We show that the theoretical predictions are capable of capturing the essential aspects of scaling behaviors from micro-compression tests.