Solid-state reactions which occurred during the heating of diffusion couples that had been prepared by high-energy ball-milling of mixtures of elemental powders were studied. It was shown that, when the size of the diffusion couples was reduced and the atomic diffusivity was enhanced by prolonged milling, the temperature required to activate the solid-state reactions decreased appreciably. In the case of the Al-Ti and Cu-Al systems, the phases which formed during the heating of mechanically prepared nm-scale diffusion couples were the same as those which formed during mechanical alloying and during the low-temperature annealing of multilayer thin films that had been prepared by sputtering.

Solid State Reactions in Nanometer Scaled Diffusion Couples Prepared using High Energy Ball Milling. D.L.Zhang, D.Y.Ying: Materials Science and Engineering A, 2001, 301[1], 90-6