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High-Temperature Stability and Grain Boundary Complexion Formation in a Nanocrystalline Cu-Zr Alloy

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Abstract

Nanocrystalline Cu-3 at.% Zr powders with ~20 nm average grain size were created with mechanical alloying and their thermal stability was studied from 550–950°C. Annealing drove Zr segregation to the grain boundaries, which led to the formation of amorphous intergranular complexions at higher temperatures. Grain growth was retarded significantly, with 1 week of annealing at 950°C, or 98% of the solidus temperature, only leading to coarsening of the average grain size to 54 nm. The enhanced thermal stability can be connected to both a reduction in grain boundary energy with doping as well as the precipitation of ZrC particles. High mechanical strength is retained even after these aggressive heat treatments, showing that complexion engineering may be a viable path toward the fabrication of bulk nanostructured materials with excellent properties.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the U.S. Army Research Office under Grant W911NF-12-1-0511. Materials characterization was performed at the Laboratory for Electron and X-ray Instrumentation (LEXI) at UC Irvine, using instrumentation funded in part by the National Science Foundation Center for Chemistry at the Space–Time Limit (CHE-082913).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA

    Amirhossein Khalajhedayati & Timothy J. Rupert

  2. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA

    Timothy J. Rupert

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  1. Amirhossein Khalajhedayati
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Correspondence to Timothy J. Rupert.

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Khalajhedayati, A., Rupert, T.J. High-Temperature Stability and Grain Boundary Complexion Formation in a Nanocrystalline Cu-Zr Alloy. JOM 67, 2788–2801 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-015-1644-9

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