Investigation of deformation instability of Au/Cu multilayers by indentation

Plastic deformation behavior of Au/Cu multilayers with individual layer thicknesses of 25–250 nm was investigated via microindentation experiments. It was found that plastic instability of the Au/Cu multilayer exhibits strong length scale (individual layer thickness and grain size) dependence. The smaller the length scale, the easier shear bands form. In other words, plastic deformation becomes unstable with decreasing length scale. Cross-sectional observation along with plan-view indicates that the occurrence of plastic deformation instability corresponds to transformation of the deformation mechanism associated with geometrical configuration and length scale of the material. At nanometer scale, buckling-assisted interface crossing of dislocations results in local shear band, while, at submicron scale or above, local dislocation pileup-induced interface offset leads to plastic instability. Theoretical analysis is conducted to understand the length scale-dependent plastic deformation behavior of the multilayer.