Structure-property relationships of Au films electrodeposited on Ni

2004 ◽  
Vol 821 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. San Marchi ◽  
N.R. Moody ◽  
M.J. Cordill ◽  
G. Lucadamo ◽  
J.J. Kelly ◽  
...  

Thin gold films and coatings on metal have long constituted an important technology for the microelectronics industry and will continue to be important for microdevices such as contact springs. The properties of these materials may be highly processing dependent, particularly when the gold is deposited by electrochemical means. In this study, we characterize gold electrodeposited on Ni substrates from two bath chemistries: hard Au sulfite with proprietary hardening additive and soft Au cyanide. TEM and SEM show that the bath chemistry alters the microstructure and the resulting surface of the electrodeposits. Nanoindentation techniques were used to determine the elastic and plastic properties of the Au electrodeposits as a function of the specifics of processing. Soft Au electrodeposits have a grain size of on the order of 300 nm and a hardness of about 1 GPa. Hard Au electrodeposits produced from the sulfite bath feature grain sizes as small as 30 nm, some twinning, and fine porosity uniformly distributed both within the grains and at grain boundaries. The hardness is about 2 GPa, approaching the hardest values reported for sputtered gold films. The effect of the hardening agent on the microstructure of electrodeposits from the Au sulfite bath was also investigated and found to significantly refine the grain size at concentrations of at least 4 mL/L, although little additional refinement was found at higher concentrations.

Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (23) ◽  
pp. 7199
Author(s):  
Hyunbin Nam ◽  
Jeongwon Kim ◽  
Namkyu Kim ◽  
Sangwoo Song ◽  
Youngsang Na ◽  
...  

In this study, the carburization characteristics of cast and cold-rolled CoCrFeMnNi high-entropy alloys (HEAs) with various grain sizes were investigated. All specimens were prepared by vacuum carburization at 940 °C for 8 h. The carburized/diffused layer was mainly composed of face-centered cubic structures and Cr7C3 carbide precipitates. The carburized/diffused layer of the cold-rolled specimen with a fine grain size (~1 μm) was thicker (~400 μm) than that of the carburized cast specimen (~200 μm) with a coarse grain size (~1.1 mm). In all specimens, the carbides were formed primarily through grain boundaries, and their distribution varied with the grain sizes of the specimens. However, the carbide precipitates of the cast specimen were formed primarily at the grain boundaries and were unequally distributed in the specific grains. Owing to the non-uniform formation of carbides in the carburized cast specimen, the areas in the diffused layer exhibited various carbide densities and hardness distributions. Therefore, to improve the carburization efficiency of equiatomic CoCrFeMnNi HEAs, it is necessary to refine the grain sizes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-85
Author(s):  
K. M. Borysovska ◽  
◽  
N. M. Marchenko ◽  
Yu. M. Podrezov ◽  
S. O. Firstov ◽  
...  

The (DD) method was used to model the formation of the plastic zone of the top of the cracks in polycrystalline molybdenum. Special attention was paid to take into account the interaction of dislocations in the plastic zone with grain boundaries. Structural sensitivity of fracture toughness was analyzed under brittle-ductile condition. Simulations were performed for a range of grain sizes from 400 to 100 μm, at which a sudden increase in fracture toughness with a decrease of grain size was experimentally shown. We calculated the value of K1c taking into account the shielding action of dislocations. The position of all dislocations in the plastic zone at fracture moment was calculated. Based on these data, we obtained the dependences of dislocation density on the distance from the crack tip thereby confirming significant influence of the grain boundaries on plastic zone formation. At large grain sizes, when the plastic zone does not touch the boundary, the distribution of dislocations remained unchanged. As grains reduce their size to size of the plastic zone, they start formating a dislocation pile – up near the boundaries. Dislocations on plastic zone move slightly toward the crack tip, but the density of dislocations in the middle of the grain remains unchanged, and fracture toughness remains almost unchanged. Further reduction of the grain size leads to the Frank-Reed source activation on the grain boundary Forming dislocation pile-up of the neighbor grains. Its stress concentration acts on dislocations of the first grain and causes redistribution of plastic zone dislocations. If the reduction in grain size is not enough to form a strong pile-up, density of dislocations on plastic zone increases slightly and crack resistance increases a few percent. Further reduction of grains promotes strong pile-up, dislocations move to crack tip, and its density on plastic zone increases. Crack is shielded and fracture toughness increases sharply. The calculation showed that the fracture toughness jump is observed at grain sizes of 100—150 μm, in good agreement with the experiment. Keywords: dislocation dynamics simulation, molybdenum, fracture toughness, grain size, plastic zone, brittle-ductile transition.


2001 ◽  
Vol 7 (S2) ◽  
pp. 400-401
Author(s):  
Y. Lei ◽  
Y. Ito ◽  
N. D. Browning

Yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) has been the subject of many experimental and theoretical studies, due to the commercial applications of zirconia-based ceramics in solid state oxide fuel cells. Since the grain boundaries usually dominate the overall macroscopic performance of the bulk material, it is essential to develop a fundamental understanding of their structure-property relationships. Previous research has been performed on the atomic structure of grain boundaries in YSZ, but no precise atomic scale compositional and chemistry characterization has been carried out. Here we report a detailed analytical study of an [001] symmetric 24° bicrystal tilt grain boundary in YSZ prepared with ∼10 mol % Y2O3 by Shinkosha Co., Ltd by the combination of Z-contrast imaging and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS).The experimental analysis of the YSZ sample was carried out on a 200kV Schottky field emission JEOL 201 OF STEM/TEM4.


Amylase ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Ping Quek ◽  
Wenwen Yu ◽  
Glen P. Fox ◽  
Robert G. Gilbert

Abstract In brewing, amylases are key enzymes in hydrolyzing barley starch to sugars, which are utilized in fermentation to produce ethanol. Starch fermentation depends on sugars produced by amylases and starch molecular structure, both of which vary with barley grain size. Grain size is a major industrial specification for selecting barley for brewing. An in-depth study is given of how enzyme activity and starch structure vary with grain size, the impact of these factors on fermentable sugar production, and the underlying mechanisms. Micro-malting and mashing experiments were based on commercial methodologies. Starch molecular structural parameters were obtained using size-exclusion chromatography, and fitted using biosynthesis-based models. Correlation analysis using the resulting parameters showed larger grain sizes contained fewer long amylopectin chains, higher amylase activities and soluble protein level. Medium grain sizes released most sugars during mashing, because of higher starch utilization from the action of amylases, and shorter amylose chains. As starch is the substrate for amylase-driven fermentable sugars production, measuring its structure should be a prime indication for mashing performance, and should be used as an industry specification when selecting barley grains for brewing.


2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (S2) ◽  
pp. 1512-1513
Author(s):  
D.A. Muller ◽  
P.Y. Huang ◽  
A.W. Tsen ◽  
R. Hovden ◽  
L. Brown ◽  
...  

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2012 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, July 29 – August 2, 2012.


2009 ◽  
Vol 1224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malgorzata Lewandowska ◽  
Romuald Dobosz ◽  
Krzysztof J Kurzydlowski

AbstractThe paper reports new experimental results describing properties and microstructure of nanocrystalline metals. Nano- and sub-micron aluminium has been produced by hydrostatic extrusion at ambient tempearture. The structures have been quantified in terms of size of grains and misorientation of the grain boundaries. Different average size of grains, variable normalized width of grain size distribution and changing grain boundary misorientation distribution functions have been revealed depending on processing parameters. The results of the tensile tests showed that the average grain size, grain size distribution and the distribution function of misorientation angles influence the flow stress of obtained nano-metals. In order to explain the observed difference in the properties of nano- and micro-sized aluminium alloys, a Finite Element Method models have been developed, which assumes that both grain boundaries and grain interiors may accommodated elastic and non-linear plastic deformation. These models assumed true geometry of grains (which differed in size and shape). Also, variable mechanical properties of grain boundaries have been taken into account (elastic modulus, yield strength and work hardening rate). The results of modelling explain in a semi-quantitative way macroscopic deformation of nano-crystalline aggregates. In particular, they illustrate the importance of the interplay between properties of grain boundaries and grain interiors in elastic and plastic regime.


2003 ◽  
Vol 426-432 ◽  
pp. 3403-3408 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.R. Moody ◽  
D.P. Adams ◽  
D.L. Medlin ◽  
T. Headley ◽  
N. Yang

1998 ◽  
Vol 538 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Schiotz ◽  
T. Vegge ◽  
K. W. Jacobsen

AbstractNanocrystalline metals, i.e. metals with grain sizes from 5 to 50 nm, display technologically interesting properties, such as dramatically increased hardness, increasing with decreasing grain size. Due to the small grain size, direct atomic-scale simulations of plastic deformation of these materials are possible, as such a polycrystalline system can be modeled with the computational resources available today.We present molecular dynamics simulations of nanocrystalline copper with grain sizes up to 13 nm. Two different deformation mechanisms are active, one is deformation through the motion of dislocations, the other is sliding in the grain boundaries. At the grain sizes studied here the latter dominates, leading to a softening as the grain size is reduced. This implies that there is an “optimal” grain size, where the hardness is maximal.Since the grain boundaries participate actively in the deformation, it is interesting to study the effects of introducing impurity atoms in the grain boundaries. We study how silver atoms in the grain boundaries influence the mechanical properties of nanocrystalline copper.


Metals ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Schneider ◽  
Felicitas Werner ◽  
Dennis Langenkämper ◽  
Christian Reinhart ◽  
Guillaume Laplanche

Among equiatomic alloys of the Cr-Mn-Fe-Co-Ni system, MnFeNi was shown to exhibit a strong anti-invar behavior but little is known regarding its mechanical properties. The objective of the present study is to investigate Hall–Petch strengthening by grain and annealing twin boundaries in MnFeNi. For this purpose, seven different grain sizes between 17 and 216 µm were produced. Mean grain sizes (excluding annealing twin boundaries) and crystallite sizes (including them) were determined using the linear intercept method. Overall, 25% of the boundaries were found to be annealing twin boundaries regardless of the grain size. In some cases, two twin boundaries can be present in one grain forming an annealing twin, which thickness represents one quarter of the mean grain size. Based on a comparison of the mean twin thickness of different alloys with different stacking fault energy (SFE), we estimated an SFE of 80 ± 20 mJ/m2 for MnFeNi. Compression tests of MnFeNi with different grain sizes were performed between 77 and 873 K and revealed a parallel shift of the Hall–Petch lines with temperature. The interaction between dislocations and boundaries was investigated by scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) in a deformed specimen. It was found that a large number of dislocations are piling up against grain boundaries while the pile-ups at annealing twin boundaries contain much fewer dislocations. This indicates that annealing twin boundaries in this alloy are less effective obstacles to dislocation motion than grain boundaries.


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