Abstract
Nanostructured metals achieve extraordinary strength but suffer from low thermal stability, both a consequence of a high fraction of interfaces. Overcoming this tradeoff relies on making the interfaces themselves thermally stable. Here we show that the atomic structures of bi-metal interfaces in macroscale nanomaterials suitable for engineering structures can be significantly altered via changing the severe plastic deformation (SPD) processing pathway. Two types of interfaces are formed, both exhibiting a regular atomic structure and providing for excellent thermal stability, up to more than half the melting temperature of one of the constituents. Most importantly, the thermal stability of one is found to be significantly better than the other, indicating the exciting potential to control and optimize macroscale robustness via atomic-scale bimetal interface tuning. Taken together, these results demonstrate an innovative way to engineer pristine bimetal interfaces for a new class of simultaneously strong and thermally stable materials.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 4226 |
| Journal | Scientific reports |
| Volume | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 27 2014 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors acknowledge support by the Center for Materials at Irradiation and Mechanical Extremes, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award Number 2008LANL1026. IJB and RJM would like to acknowledge support through a Los Alamos National Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project ER20140348. This work was performed, in part, at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, an Office of Science User Facility operated for the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science. This work has also benefited from the use of the Lujan Neutron Scattering Center at LANSCE, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences. The authors appreciate collaboration pertaining to the neutron diffraction work with Dr. Sven C. Vogel of Los Alamos National Laboratory.