Crystallization-aided extraordinary plastic deformation in nanolayered crystalline Cu/amorphous Cu-Zr micropillars

Mechanical and Tribological Performances Enhanced by Self-Assembled Structures

Taking inspiration from natural materials, composite materials can be reinforced by creating matrix architectures that can better accommodate and control internal stresses. Despite the recent success in the synthesis of artificial assemblies for local reinforcement through the introduction of oriented fibers and plates into host multilayered composites, there is a lack of fundamental understanding of the factors that determine mechanical properties. Moreover, designing building blocks and interfaces that facilitate higher resistance and energy dissipation is highly challenging. When the intrinsic material is fixed, the mechanical and tribological properties can be further adjusted. In this study, europium oxide nanosheets are arranged in interlocked-junction superstructures that resist sliding at junction points, thereby enhancing the mechanical properties of the nanosheet assemblies compared to those of the conventional face-to-face superstructures formed by parallel nanosheets. Furthermore, the crystalline origin of building blocks is revealed by demonstrating that faulty crystal nanosheets adopting an amorphous structure are different from single-crystal nanosheets, with the former exhibiting superior mechanical reinforcement and improved abrasive resistance.

Eliminating deformation incompatibility in composites by gradient nanolayer architectures

Composite materials usually possess a severe deformation incompatibility between the soft and hard phases. Here, we show how this incompatibility problem is overcome by a novel composite design. A gradient nanolayer-structured Cu-Zr material has been synthesized by magnetron sputtering and tested by micropillar compression. The interface spacing between the alternating Cu and Zr nanolayers increases gradually by one order of magnitude from 10 nm at the surface to 100 nm in the centre. The interface spacing gradient creates a mechanical gradient in the depth direction, which generates a deformation gradient during loading that accumulates a substantial amount of geometrically necessary dislocations. These dislocations render the component layers of originally high mechanical contrast compatible. As a result, we revealed a synergetic mechanical response in the material, which is characterized by fully compatible deformation between the constituent Cu and Zr nanolayers with different thicknesses, resulting in a maximum uniform layer strain of up to 60% in the composite. The deformed pillars have a smooth surface, validating the absence of deformation incompatibility between the layers. The joint deformation response is discussed in terms of a micromechanical finite element simulation.

Plastic Deformation Modes of CuZr/Cu Multilayers

We synthesized CuZr/Cu multilayers and performed nanoindentation testing to explore the dependence of plastic deformation modes on the thickness of CuZr layers. The Cu layers were 18 nm thick and the CuZr layers varied in thickness from 4 nm to 100 nm. We observed continuous plastic co-deformation in the 4 nm and 10 nm CuZr - 18 nm Cu multilayers and plastic-induced shear instability in thick CuZr layers (>20 nm). The plastic co-deformation is ascribed to the nucleation and interaction of shear transformation zones in CuZr layers at the adjacent interfaces, while the shear instability is associated with the nucleation and propagation of shear bands in CuZr layers. Shear bands are initialized in the CuZr layers due to the accumulated glide dislocations along CuZr-Cu interfaces, and propagate into adjacent Cu layers via slips on {111} plane non-parallel to the interface. Due to crystallographic constraint of the Cu layers, shear bands are approximately parallel to {111} plane in the Cu layer.

Crystallization-aided extraordinary plastic deformation in nanolayered crystalline Cu/amorphous Cu-Zr micropillars

Metallic glasses are lucrative engineering materials owing to their superior mechanical properties such as high strength and great elastic strain. However, the Achilles' heel of metallic amorphous materials - low plasticity caused by instantaneous catastrophic shear banding, significantly undercut their structural applications. Here, the nanolayered crystalline Cu/amorphous Cu-Zr micropillars with equal layer thickness spanning from 20-100 nm are uniaxially compressed and it is found that the Cu/Cu-Zr micropillars exhibit superhigh homogeneous deformation (≥ 30% strain) rather than localized shear banding at room temperature. This extraordinary plasticity is aided by the deformation-induced devitrification via absorption/annihilation of abundant dislocations, triggering the cooperative shearing of shear transformation zones in glassy layers, which simultaneously renders the work-softening. The synthesis of such heterogeneous nanolayered structure not only hampers shear band generation but also provides a viable route to enhance the controllability of plastic deformation in metallic glassy composites via deformation-induced devitrification mechanism.