Microstructural heterogeneity and the mechanical behavior of nanocrystalline metals.

Ultrafine grained and nanocrystalline metals have attracted increasing interest, both scientific and commercial, in recent years because of their potentially superior mechanical properties. Their properties, such as very high strength, primarily arise from the change in the underlying deformation mechanisms. Experimental and simulation studies have shown that because of the extremely small grain size conventional dislocation plasticity is curtailed in these materials and grain boundary mediated mechanisms become more important. Although the deformation behavior and the underlying mechanisms in these materials have been investigated in depth, relatively little attention has been focused on the inhomogeneous nature of their microstructure and its influence on their macroscopic response. In this study, we have demonstrated through experiments on nanoscale metal films how the interplay between microstructural heterogeneity and size in ultrafine grained and nanocrystalline metals leads to unusual mechanical behavior. In the first part of the study, we have shown that (a) nanocrystalline metals, unlike their coarse grained counterparts, recover a substantial fraction (50 to 100%) of their plastic deformation after unloading, and (b) ultrafine grained metal films show a pronounced Bauschinger effect even at high tensile stresses during unloading. Then, we have presented evidence from in situ transmission electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction experiments that strongly indicate that these unusual phenomena are a direct consequence of the coupling between the small size and heterogeneity of the microstructure. Based on the in situ experiments, we have proposed simple mechanistic models to interpret these phenomena. Finally, we have shown that in nanoscale metal films with a homogeneous microstructure Bauschinger effect is substantially reduced.