Extremely strong nano-twinned pure nickel with extremely
fine twin thickness

In a new report on Science Advances, Fenghui Duan and
a research team in China detailed continuous strengthening in
nanotwinned pure Nickel materials. The material recorded an
unprecedented strength of 4.0 GPa at extremely fine twin thickness,
12 times stronger than that of conventional coarse-grained Nickel.
Theories suggest diverse mechanisms of softening nanograined
metals. Continuous strengthening can occur in nanotwinned metals
with extremely fine twin thickness to realize ultrahigh strength.
It is challenging to experimentally verify this hypothesis while
regulating the synthesis of nanotwinned metals with a thickness
below 10 nm. In this work, the team developed columnar grained
nanotwinned nickel with twin thickness ranging from 2.9 to 81 nm,
using direct current electrodeposition to show the process of
continuous strengthening. Duan et al. used transmission electron
microscopy (TEM) to reveal the attributes of strengthening and
credited the outcomes to the fine-spaced architecture of the
material.