A Sharp Cube Texture in Warm Rolled and Subsequently Annealed Silver Sheet

Abstract

In order to obtain a sharply cube textured silver sheet as the substrate for high temperature superconductor (HTS) film with high Jc (critical current density), warm rolling combined with two step annealing treatment has been performed to clarify the perspective of texture formation in pure silver. Two kinds of starting material, which are silver ingots of commercial purity obtained by casting in air and vacuum, were used to examine the effect of oxygen on texture development. The main feature of warm rolling texture obtained in this study was a strong Brass {011}<211> component with minor S {123}<412> component, and in some cases, cube {001}<100> component or Copper {112}<111> component appeared also depending on the warm rolling procedures. Upon crystallization, {001}<100>, {124}<4,12,7> and {13,6,15}<365> orientations were formed as the dominant components in silver sheets and the relative amount of their orientation components depended on the concrete annealing conditions applied and on the oxygen content. A very sharp single-crystal like cube texture has been successfully realized in the specimen, which was cast in vacuum, warm rolled by 95 percent and subsequently annealed as 1500C×10 min-5000C×30 min in nitrogen. Finally, we discussed the technological basis on sharp cube texture formation in f.c.c. pure metals with low stacking fault energy.