Journal of Materials Science, Vol.52, No.2, 913-920, 2017
Maintaining strength in supersaturated copper-chromium thin films annealed at 0.5 of the melting temperature of Cu
The thermal stability of evaporated copper-chromium alloy films was studied by correlating hardness trends from nanoindentation to nanostructural-compositional changes from transmission electron microscopy. In particular, the hardness evolution with ageing time at ambient and elevated temperatures of two compositions, dilute (Cu96Cr4) and chromium-rich (Cu67Cr33) solutions, was studied. Due to the negligible mutual miscibility of copper and chromium, the chosen solid solutions are trapped in metastable states as supersaturated solid solutions with face-centred cubic and body-centred cubic phases. Nano-mechanical probing of the nanostructural evolution as a function of temperature provided interesting insights into the phase separation of these systems.