Creep and superplasticity in nanocrystalline materials: current understanding and future prospects

Nanocrystalline materials (nc-materials), which are characterized by a grain size in the range 1–100 nm, have emerged as a new class of materials with unusual structures. In recent years, creep and superplasticity in nc-materials have been the subject of a number of studies. In particular, experimental studies have focused on (a) whether grain boundary diffusion creep, which is expected to be dominant in coarse-grained materials at moderate...