Thermal stability, mechanical and electrical properties of nanocrystalline Cu3Ge

The intermetallic ɛ1 compound Cu3Ge was produced through a mechanical alloying procedure that enables the formation of a nanograined microstructure. There is a dependence of grain size (20–11 nm) on milling conditions. The microstructure remained very stable even at temperatures up to 500 °C for 5 h which is a minimum of 76% of the melting temperature. The materials produced by these methods were in the form of powders with particle size ranging from 200 nm to 10 μm. The morphology of the particles varied with the largest being rough and irregular and the smallest being spherical. Preliminary resistivity measurements showed low resistivity, 8.8 μΩ cm, which is comparable to that previously reported for thin films with grain sizes thousands of times larger. Nanoindentation was also performed, yielding an elastic modulus of ∼110 GPa.