Tailoring and patterning the grain size of nanocrystalline alloys

Nanocrystalline alloys that exhibit grain boundary segregation can access thermodynamically stable or metastable states with the average grain size dictated by the alloying addition. Here we consider nanocrystalline Ni–W alloys and demonstrate that the W content controls the grain size over a very broad range: ∼2–140 nm as compared with ∼2–20 nm in previous work on strongly segregating systems. This trend is attributed to a relatively weak tendency for W segregation to the grain boundaries. Based upon this observation, we introduce a new synthesis technique allowing for precise composition control during the electrodeposition of Ni–W alloys, which, in turn, leads to precise control of the nanocrystalline grain size. This technique offers new possibilities for understanding the structure–property relationships of nanocrystalline solids, such as the breakdown of Hall–Petch strength scaling, and also opens the door to a new class of customizable materials incorporating patterned nanostructures.