X-ray diffraction investigation of self-annealing in nanocrystalline copper electrodeposits

X-ray diffraction analysis and electrical resistivity measurements were conducted simultaneously for in-situ examination of self-annealing in copper electrodeposits. Considerable growth of the as-deposited nano-sized crystallites occurs with time and the crystallographic texture changes by multiple twinning during self-annealing. The kinetics of self-annealing depends on the layer thickness as well as on the orientation and/or the size of the as-deposited crystallites.