7.2 Work hardening, alloying, and annealing.
One of the questions we would like to ask is, why are the yield stresses of normal (polycrystalline) metal samples so much lower (by a factor of 1000) than they are in perfect single crystals? The answer has to do with the motion of dislocations. Consider the picture below, which shows planes of metal atoms near a dislocation (the individual atoms are numbered to help you see which bonds are broken and which are formed). The arrows indicate force applied under shear stress. Notice how the dislocation moves by breaking/making metal-metal bonds.