Tensile and Fatigue Properies of Ultrathin Copper Films and their Temperature Dependence

The molecular dynamics simulations are performed with single-crystal copper thin films under uniaxial tensile and cyclic loading to investigate temperature effects on the mechanical responses. With the changes of sample temperatures in uniaxial extension, the variation characteristics of maximum stress, the Young’s modulus, the maximal potential energy, the atomic structure of the emerging dislocation, and activation volume and activation free energy at the maximum stress point make us identify and explain the critical temperature for the transition of deformation mechanism in a temperature range from 293 to 460 K. Under cyclic loading, with raising temperature, the number of cycles to failure of copper films increases under different manners in different temperature range, which can be explained by our constructing model based on the evolutionary features of dislocation. Thus, the mechanisms of the strange temperature dependence of tensile and cyclic deformation have been explained. When the temperature is above 370 K, the rate controlling mechanism is dislocation climbing during uniaxial loading, and the number of cycles to failure goes up quickly with temperature; when below 370 K, the mechanism of uniaxial tensility is mainly characterized by the overcoming of Peierls–Nabarro barrier and a few localized pinnings, the number of cycles rises slowly; and when about 370 K, the mechanism in single-axial tension is pipe diffusion, the number of cycles increases at middle speed.