How Coherent and Semi-Coherent Interfaces Govern Dislocation Nucleation in Lamellar TiAl Alloys

γ/γ interfaces drive plastic deformation in lamellar TiAl alloys. Due to the ordering and resulting tetragonal nature of γ phase, γ/γ twin interfaces exist as different variants, some of which exhibit coherency stresses or semicoherent interface structures. While geometric parameters, such as the lamella spacing and orientation, are explored extensively in experiments, the isolation of individual influence of different interfaces in a nanolamellar microstructure remains a challenge. Herein, the range of γ/γ interface states is modeled using bilayers of the coherent γ/γ_TrueTwin, and the coherent or semicoherent γ/γ_PseudoTwin, and their deformation behavior is compared. It is shown that residual coherency stresses arise due to misfit accommodation in coherent γ/γ_PT specimens, which causes early preferential nucleation in one γ layer. Similarly, semicoherent specimens show preferential nucleation from misfit dislocations at the interface, which obeys Schmid's rule. In contrast, coherent γ/γ_TT specimens show no preferential nucleation and therefore exhibit higher strength. Thus, it is demonstrated that the presence of rotational γ/γ interfaces with misfit is responsible for localized and early plasticity, that lowers the strength of a lamellar microstructure. The interface type, which considers the coherency state, is used as a criterion for alloy microstructure design in the future.