Gibbs–Thomson relationship for the precipitation in Cu–Ti alloys

A diffusion-couple Cu/Cu–Ti alloy was prepared in order to obtain a macroscopic composition gradient in the Cu–Ti alloy system. This couple was solution treated subsequently water quenched and aged at 837 K for 600 s. The precipitation process was analyzed with an EDS-TEM. The Gibbs–Thomson relation was used to analyze the precipitation of the metastable and semicoherent β′ phase in Cu–Ti alloys and this relationship enabled us to estimate the interfacial free energy between matrix and precipitates to be about 0.31 ± 0.02 J m− 2.