Dissolution processes and grain growth behaviour in a supersaturated nanocrystalline Ag-Cu alloy

In this paper the solid solution supersaturation and dissolution as well as grain growth effects are studied in nanocrystalline AgCu alloys by using a step-annealing treatment during transmission electron microscopy (TEM) as well as during X-ray diffraction (XRD). A comparison of the results obtained by these two methods show that the variations of the solute concentration in the solid solution are too small to lead to a measurable peak broadening effect in the XRD spectra, but that dissolution of supersaturated solid solution alpha-Ag and alpha-Cu grains occurs.