Nanotwinned CrN ceramics with enhanced plasticity.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 40593678.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-61275-2 and PMC identifier 12215833.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Ceramic materials are usually hard but brittle, and it is challenging to achieve a simultaneous enhancement of strength and plasticity using conventional strengthening methods. In ceramic materials with similar atomic size and properties, the fabrication of nanotwins is a promising approach to enhance the plasticity, but it is unknown whether the strategy works for transition metal nitrides. Herein, nanotwinned CrN (NT-CrN) with a twin density of 9.0 × 10<sup>15 </sup>m<sup>-2</sup> and twin-containing grain volume fraction of about 52 % is prepared by adjusting the ion kinetic energy during growth. Owing to the twin boundaries, NT-CrN exhibits high hardness (>36 GPa) and enhanced room-temperature plasticity at the same time. Compression deformation of over 40% without brittle failure is achieved. The enhanced room-temperature plasticity is attributed to the distributions of nanotwin boundaries (nano-TB) which allow special slipping by twisting the polyhedron constructed by nano-TB without bond breakage. The accompanying twin proliferation and fusion subsequently dissipate the energy to enhance the plasticity.