Stacking fault and twinning in nanocrystalline metals

Nanocrystalline Al processed by cryogenic ball-milling and nanocrystalline Cu processed by high-pressure torsion at a very low strain rate and at room temperature were investigated using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. For nanocrystalline Al, we observed partial dislocation emission from grain boundaries, which consequently resulted in deformation stacking faults and twinning. We also observed deformation twins formed via two other mechanisms recently predicted by molecular dynamic simulations. These results are surprising because (1) partial dislocation emission from grain boundaries has not been experimentally observed although it has been predicted by simulations and (2) deformation stacking faults and twinning have not been repotted in Al due to its high stacking fault energy. For nanocrystalline Cu, we found that twinning becomes a major deformation mechanism, which contrasts with the literature reports that deformation twinning in coarse-grained Cu occurs only under high strain rate and/or low temperature conditions and that reducing grain sizes suppresses deformation twinning. The investigation of the twinning morphology suggests that twins and stacking faults in nanocrystalline Cu were formed through partial dislocation emissions from grain boundaries. This mechanism differs from the pole mechanism operating in coarse-grained Cu.