Modification of microstructure and hardness for Cu–Ti alloy by means of energetic ion beam irradiation

Cu–Ti alloys were irradiated with 5.4 MeV Al ions, 7.3 MeV Fe ions, 10 MeV I ions, and 16 MeV Au ions at room temperature and the Vickers microhardness was measured. The hardness once increases by the irradiation with a low fluence, and then it remains almost constant even with increasing the ion fluence. The change in hardness was well correlated with the density of energy deposited through the elastic collisions and not the electronic excitation. The observation of atom probe tomography (APT) did not show any Ti clusters in the irradiated specimens. This result suggests that not Ti clusters but lattic defects (interstitial atoms, vacancies and/or their aggregates) contributed to the increase in hardness of Cu–Ti alloys.