Material deformation at atomic scale resembles avalanches

The rearrangement of particles in materials during deformation, such as when a spoon is bent, doesn't occur independently, but rather resembles highly collective avalanches that span the entire material. This is the conclusion of experimental research conducted by researchers from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The team's findings, which are published in the latest edition of Nature Communications, offers a new universal theory of deformatio...