It had been reported that so-called plastic deformation in free-standing face-centred cubic nanocrystalline thin films was partially recoverable. Here, numerical simulations were performed in order to show that this phenomenon could be explained in terms of heterogeneous grain-boundary diffusion and sliding.

Recoverable Creep Deformation due to Heterogeneous Grain-Boundary Diffusion and Sliding. Y.Wei, A.F.Bower, H.Gao: Scripta Materialia, 2007, 57[10], 933-6