Microstructure, indentation and work hardening of Cu/Ag multilayers

Abstract

Instrumented indentation and tensile tests were performed on free standing Cu/Ag multilayer thin films with layer thicknesses in the range 0.85–900 nm. The effect of layer thickness can be described by a Hall–Petch relationship. The work-hardening rate in the tensile test depends on layer thickness, which indicates that the interfaces create storage sites for dislocations and follows an inverse power law.

Acknowledgments

Los Alamos National Laboratory and NSERC Canada are acknowledged for financial support. The work at Harvard was supported by the Harvard Materials Research Science and Engineering Center under contract number DMR 98-09363. H.H. acknowledges support from an AlliedSignal predoctoral fellowship.

Notes

§Present address: LTPCM (CNRS UMR 29), Domaine Universitaire, BP75 38402, St. Martin d'Héres Cedex, France.

¶Present address: General Atomic, Internal Fusion Technology Division, San Diego, CA, USA.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

M. Verdier§

§Present address: LTPCM (CNRS UMR 29), Domaine Universitaire, BP75 38402, St. Martin d'Héres Cedex, France.

H. Huang¶

¶Present address: General Atomic, Internal Fusion Technology Division, San Diego, CA, USA.