The cross-transition of deformation twinning in magnesium

Abstract Deformation twinning operates via twinning dislocations gliding on a specific twinning plane and along a specific twinning direction. As a consequence, a twin variant is supposed to retain its identity and unable to transform into other variants. However, we demonstrated that for the { 10 1 ¯ 2 } deformation twinning in magnesium, one twin variant can transform towards its conjugated variant in response to the external applied loading via the participation of prismatic-basal interface migration. We term such transformation as cross-transition of deformation twinning, which is expected to broaden the understanding of twinning mechanism.