Aluminum/Copper Nanocomposites Fabricated by The Jet Vapor Depositiontm Process

Abstract

ABSTRACTAluminum and copper nanolaminates have been fabricated at Jet Process Corporation using the novel, proprietary Jet Vapor DepositionTM (JVD)TM process. Laminates with a total thickness of 10 μm were made by depositing alternating layers ofapproximately equal thicknesses of copper and aluminum onto preheated silicon wafers at asubstrate temperature of ∼140 °C. The layer thicknesses were systematicallyvaried between 20 nm and 1 μm. The microstructure and properties of the laminates were investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and nanoindentation methods. TEM has shown that the laminates have a strong {111} texture. The hardness results show that above a critical layer thickness of approximately 50 nm, the yield strength of the composites varies inversely with thelayer thickness, while the strength of nanolaminates with layer thicknesses smaller than the critical thickness is better explained by the Koehler model. An alternative model recently proposed by Embury and Hirth fits the data equally well.