Kinetics of annealing-induced detwinning in chemical vapor deposited nickel

Abstract Nickel carbonyl vapor deposition (CVD) is a high-efficiency process used to produce nickel shell molds with high yield strength, reasonable ductility, and strong corrosion resistance. Such advantageous properties arise from the nanocrystals and nanotwins inside CVD nickel. However, the nanotwins do not persist at high temperatures, transforming into dislocation cells after 40-min annealing at 800 °C . Using experimental examinations and computational simulations, we investigated the kinetics of the annealing-induced detwinning in CVD nickel. TEM examinations showed that detwinning is realized by incoherent twin boundary (ITB) migration; meanwhile, plentiful dislocations are generated from coherent twin boundaries (CTBs). Our theoretical analysis revealed that these dislocations are necessary for the formation of the ITBs. Next, using molecular dynamics simulations, we found that the dislocations nucleated from CTBs during annealing are intrinsic grain boundary dislocations (IGBDs). Driven by the internal stress intensified by grain growth in the nanocrystalline regime, the IGBDs can separate from CTBs due to creep at 800 °C , resulting in a higher dislocation density inside the twin lamella than that of the outside. These dislocations can trigger the formation of ITBs. Overall, unlike grain growth, stress is necessary for detwinning, so a monolithic nanotwin structure should be more stable than the nanotwins inside a nanocrystalline matrix.