• Johannessen, B.
• Ridgway, M. C.
• Foran, G. J.
• Cookson, D. J.
• Llewellyn, D. J.

Abstract

<p>While bulk crystalline elemental metals cannot be amorphized by ion irradiation in the absence of chemical impurities, the authors demonstrate that finite-size effects enable the amorphization of embedded Cu nanocrystals. The authors form and compare the atomic-scale structure of the polycrystalline, nanocrystalline, and amorphous phases, present an explanation for the extreme sensitivity to irradiation exhibited by nanocrystals, and show that low-temperature annealing is sufficient to return amorphized material to the crystalline form.</p>

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• amorphous
• phase
• annealing