Abstract
The unexpected glide of dislocations on a plane parallel to the film/substrate interface in ultrathin copper films, which has been called parallel glide (Balk et al 2003 Acta Metall. 51 447), is described using an analytical model. The phenomenon is observed as a problem involving inlet/outlet flow from different positions of a grain boundary into the grain channel. In this sense, parallel glide is presented as the flow of dislocations with an internal stress source/sink distribution.