Mitigating the Hall-Petch breakdown in nanotwinned Cu by amorphous intergranular films

JW Xiao and C Deng, SCRIPTA MATERIALIA, 194, 113682 (2021).

DOI: 10.1016/j.scriptamat.2020.113682

In this work, we present nanotwinned (nt-) Cu with amorphous intergranular films (AIFs) as a prototype to mitigate the Hall-Petch breakdown in nt-metals. By using atomistic simulations, we show that by introducing AIFs into nt-Cu, the dominating plastic deformation mechanisms shift from typical dislocation-mediated deformation to interfacial activities in the AIFs. The reduced dislocation nucleation in nt-Cu by AIFs thus slow down the dislocation-mediated Hall-Petch breakdown prevailing in regular nt-metals. We hope that this work provides new insights into the design of ultrastrong and tough materials beyond the limit of conventional nt-metals. (C) 2020 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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