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The grain refinement mechanism of electrodeposited copper

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

Jianshe Lian*
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130025, People’s Republic of China
Qing Jiang
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130025, People’s Republic of China
*
a) Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: lianjs@jlu.edu.cn
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Abstract

Microstructure features of five electrodeposited coppers with different grain sizes were systematically characterized by using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations and x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Based on the experimental observations, two mechanisms for the grain refinement in electrodeposited copper were identified: (i) twin–twin intersection can directly create grains with large-angle boundaries as small as 10 nm and (ii) grains can also be refined via formation of dislocation cells, transformation of dislocation cell walls into sub-boundaries with small misorientations, and evolution of sub-boundaries into highly misoriented grain boundaries. Besides, dislocations are also effective to cut twin lamellas into pieces and make twin boundaries curved and round.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2009

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