Tensile Properties and Thermal Stability of Unidirectionally <111>-Oriented Nanotwinned and <110>-Oriented Microtwinned Copper

Tensile tests on two kinds of electroplated copper foils with twins before and after annealing were performed. One electroplating parameter results in a microstructure of <110>-oriented microtwinned Cu (mt-Cu), and the other is <111>-oriented nanotwinned Cu (nt-Cu). The latter shows higher thermal stability than the former after annealing. Though the toughness for the two as-plated foils are quite close, the toughness for the <111> oriented nt-Cu increased from 34 to 74 MJ/m(3) after annealing at 250 °C for 3 h. In comparison, the toughness of the <110>-oriented mt-Cu remained almost the same after annealing.