Structural Change during Cold Rolling of Electrodeposited Copper

Abstract

Copper sheet samples composed of nanometer scale lamellar twins was produced by electrodeposition. The coherent lamellar twin boundaries were within 20˚ of being parallel to the sheet plane in more than 60% of the grains. The electrodeposited sample was cold rolled to 30 and 85% reductions in thickness and the structural evolution during cold rolling was examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high resolution TEM (HRTEM). Extensive activity of partial dislocations along twin boundaries and of perfect dislocations within twins (in particular in coarse twins >100nm) were identified. Moreover, it was found that shear banding occurred, which locally destroyed the lamellar twin structure. A dislocation structure developed within the shear bands, and such a structure evolved with strain and gradually replaced the lamellar twin structure. After 85% deformation, a large volume fraction of the lamellar twin structure was replaced by a lamellar dislocation structure characteristic of high strain rolling where the lamellar dislocation boundaries are almost parallel to the rolling plane. It was also found that the structural scales are coarser in the lamellar dislocation structure than in the initial lamellar twin structure.