Slip bands

Slip bands are like highways inside materials that let things move around. Imagine you have a toy car, and you want to move it from one side of a table to the other. You would have to pick it up and physically move it to get it there. But, inside materials like metals, there are tiny highways called slip bands that let pieces of the material move around without needing any help.

These slip bands are made up of many tiny "stairs" that let atoms move past each other more easily. When a material is under stress, like maybe a heavy weight sitting on top of it, the atoms inside it want to move to find a more comfortable place to be. The atoms will kick off each other and start to move down the slip bands like they are on a slide. Once they start sliding, the material will start to bend or stretch.

When you look at a material under a microscope, you can see these slip bands as lines or patterns on the surface. But, don't worry, even though it looks like the material is breaking, it is just trying to adjust to the weight on top of it so it doesn't get hurt.