Irradiation-induced dissociation of an a edge dislocation in SrTiO3

We report the dissociation of an a⟨100⟩ dislocation core in SrTiO3 into two (a/2)⟨100⟩ partial cores during electron-beam irradiation in a high-voltage transmission electron microscope. The partial separation is approximately 1 nm. Based on the forces acting between the partials, a dissociation mechanism is proposed which includes a combination of climb and glide processes.