Influence of plasticity mismatch and porosity on mechanical behavior of nanoscale Ag/W multilayers

Ag/W multilayers with periodicity ranging from 15 to 200 nm were deposited by direct current magnetron sputtering. The microstructure, hardness and elastic modulus were investigated by X-ray diffraction, Rutherford backscattering, X-ray fluorescence, scanning electron microscopy and nanoindentation. The results show that multilayers with periodicity less than 50 nm have columnar porous structure, which leads to low modulus and brittle fracture. Multilayers with periodicity larger than 50 nm have continuous laminated structure, and they are relatively ductile. All the multilayers have abnormal low hardness far less than a rule of mixture value, which has been attributed to porous structure and the deformation localization due to the plasticity mismatch between Ag and W.