The internal stress and microstructure in nanomultilayers strongly affect their reliability and
performance, especially towards higher service temperatures. The initial stress and …

The mechanics for the development and relaxation of stresses in films is briefly reviewed.
The discussion initially focuses on how stresses are distributed within a film and substrate …

Agglomeration is a common problem in all technological areas that depend on the integrity
and continuity of films. The origin of agglomeration of thin films has been traced to its …

Constrained grain-boundary diffusion in polycrystalline thin metal films on substrates is
studied as a strongly coupled elasticity and grain-boundary diffusion problem in which no …

Thin nickel (Ni) films were grown on c-plane-oriented sapphire substrates by electron-beam
deposition. The as-deposited films exhibited a mazed bicrystal microstructure consisting of …

Nanostructured metallic multilayers have attracted significant attention due to their high
mechanical strength. However, they often have limited thermal stability at elevated …

We investigate the sintering of two touching circular particles by surface and grain boundary
diffusion. Typical examples for the evolution of the shape of the particles, their surface …

Catastrophic brittle failure of ductile materials by liquid metal embrittlement (LME) is a widely
documented phenomenon but the fundamentals of its initiation mechanism are poorly …

Advanced microscopy characterisation and numerical modelling have been carried out to
investigate oxygen diffusion and crack growth in a nickel-based superalloy under fatigue …

Mass transport at interfaces is induced by a gradient of chemical potential along the
interface; typically, at surfaces, this is caused by a gradient in curvature and, at grain …