Related papers: Amorphous intergranular films mitigate radiation d…
Nanocrystalline metal alloys show great potential as structural materials, but are often only available in small volumes such as thin films or powders. However, recent research has suggested that dopant segregation and grain boundary…
Nanocrystalline metals typically have high fatigue strengths, but low resistance to crack propagation. Amorphous intergranular films are disordered grain boundary complexions that have been shown to delay crack nucleation and slow crack…
Solute segregation is used to limit grain growth in nanocrystalline metals, but this stabilization often breaks down at high temperatures. Amorphous intergranular films can form in certain alloys at sufficiently high temperatures, providing…
Grain boundary-based mechanisms are known to control the plastic deformation and failure of nanocrystalline metals, with manipulation of the boundary structure a promising path for tuning this response. In this study, the role of…
The ability of amorphous intergranular films to mitigate damage formation at grain boundaries is studied with molecular dynamics simulations. We find that such films can alter both crack nucleation and crack growth rates by efficiently…
Amorphous grain boundary complexions have been shown to increase the plasticity of nanocrystalline alloys as compared to ordered grain boundaries. Here, the effect of an important structural descriptor, amorphous complexion thickness, on…
Amorphous complexions have recently been demonstrated to simultaneously enhance the ductility and stability of certain nanocrystalline alloys. In this study, three quinary alloys (Cu-Zr-Hf-Mo-Nb, Cu-Zr-Hf-Nb-Ti, and Cu-Zr-Hf-Mo-W) are…
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 {\deg}C. Annealing drove Zr segregation to the grain boundaries, which led to the…
Amorphous interfacial complexions are particularly resistant to radiation damage and have been primarily studied in alloys with good glass-forming ability, yet recent reports suggest that these features can form even in immiscible alloys…
Building on the recent discovery of tough nanocrystalline Cu-Zr alloys with amorphous intergranular films, this paper investigates ternary nanocrystalline Cu-Zr-Hf alloys with a focus on understanding how alloy composition affects the…
Nanocrystalline materials have been proposed for use in future fusion reactors due to their high grain boundary density that may act as a sink for irradiation-induced defects. We use molecular dynamics to model collision cascades in…
Atomistic simulations are used to study segregation-induced intergranular film formation in Cu-Zr and Cu-Nb alloys. While Cu-Zr forms structurally disordered or amorphous films, ordered films comprised of a second phase usually precipitate…
Complexions are phase-like interfacial features that can influence a wide variety of properties, but the ability to predict which material systems can sustain these features remains limited. Amorphous complexions are of particular interest…
Amorphous complexions in nanocrystalline metals have the potential to improve mechanical properties and radiation tolerance, as well as resistance to grain growth. In this study, the stability of amorphous complexions in binary and ternary…
Atomistic simulations are used to explore the effect of interfacial structure on residual radiation damage. Specifically, an ordered grain boundary is compared to a disordered amorphous intergranular film, to investigate how interface…
Nanocrystalline materials are defined by their fine grain size, but details of the grain boundary character distribution should also be important. Grain boundary character distributions are reported for ball milled, sputter deposited, and…
Grain size engineering, particularly reducing grain size into the nanocrystalline regime, offers a promising pathway to further improve the strength-to-weight ratio of Al alloys. Unfortunately, the fabrication of nanocrystalline metals…
Pulsed laser deposition from a Nd:YAG laser was employed in production of hundreds of nanometer thick quasicrystalline Ti-Zr-Ni films on glass substrate. The influence of deposition temperature Ts on the structure, morphology and…
Grain boundary complexions have been observed to affect the mechanical behavior of nanocrystalline metals, improving both strength and ductility. While an explanation for the improved ductility exists, the observed effect on strength…
It was recently reported that segregation of Zr to grain boundaries (GB) in nanocrystalline Cu can lead to the formation of disordered intergranular films [1,2]. In this study we employ atomistic computer simulations to study how the…