# Defect phases beyond grain boundaries

## TL;DR

This paper introduces the concept of 'defect phases' to better understand how defects in materials affect their stability and mechanical properties.

## Contribution

The paper expands the concept of defect phases to include all dimensionalities, emphasizing dislocations and their role in alloy behavior.

## Key findings

- Defect phases across different dimensionalities influence mechanical behavior and phase stability.
- Dislocation-based defect phases can strengthen alloys and drive local transformations.
- Defect phase diagrams in chemical potential space help map stability and solute competition.

## Abstract

Defects are fundamental to the behavior and performance of structural materials, yet their treatment in alloy design has often been decoupled from thermodynamic considerations of phase stability. The emerging concept of "defect phases" — chemically and structurally distinct configurations at lattice defects — offers a unified framework that integrates defect chemistry, thermodynamic stability, and mechanical behavior. While grain-boundary (two-dimensional) defect phases have gained recent attention, this article expands the scope to include defect phases across all dimensionalities, with a particular emphasis on dislocations (one-dimensional) as mobile carriers of plastic deformation and sites of complex phase behavior. We discuss how point, line, and planar defects can host distinct defect phases, how these phases compete for solute atoms, and how their stability can be mapped using defect phase diagrams constructed in chemical potential space. Through selected case studies in metallic solid solutions and ordered intermetallics, including Laves, B2, and µ-phases, we illustrate how dislocation-based defect phases can influence plasticity, strengthen alloys, or even drive local transformations that modify mechanical properties. By bridging defect physics with materials thermodynamics, we advocate for a defect phase-informed design paradigm that connects atomic-scale phenomena to bulk processing and performance.