Deformation-induced work function changes in Cu single crystals. I. Experiment

Abstract

Tensile deformation-induced work function change experiments were conducted in the elastic and plastic regimes on Cu single crystals. Simultaneous measurements of load, displacement, and contact potential difference changes were made on the samples in an ultrahigh vacuum. The work function change to deformation modulus may be as large as 24 μV/MPa in the elastic regime and varied from +1.7 to −11.8 mV/% strain in the plastic regime for different surface orientations.