Stacking fault

In crystallography, a stacking fault is a type of defect which characterizes the disordering of crystallographic planes. It is thus considered a planar defect.^[1]

The common example of stacking faults is portrayed as a comparison of close-packed structures. Face-centered cubic (fcc) structures differ from hexagonal close packed (hcp) structures only in stacking order: both structures have close packed atomic planes with sixfold symmetry — the atoms form equilateral triangles. When stacking one of these layers on top of another, the atoms are not directly on top of one another—the first two layers are identical for hcp and fcc, and labelled AB. If the third layer is placed so that its atoms are directly above those of the first layer, the stacking will be ABA — this is the hcp structure, and it continues ABABABAB. However, there is another possible location for the third layer, such that its atoms are not above the first layer. Instead, it is the atoms in the fourth layer that are directly above the first layer. This produces the stacking ABCABCABC, and is actually a cubic arrangement of the atoms. A stacking fault is a one- or two-layer interruption in the stacking sequence — for example, if the sequence ABCABABCAB were found in an fcc structure.

Stacking faults carry a given formation enthalpy per unit area; this is called stacking-fault energy.

References

• Introduction to Chemical and Structural Defects in Crystalline Solids, Fine Morris E. (1921)., Treatise on Solid State Chemistry Volume 1.