Microstructural characteristics of pure gold processed by equal-channel angular pressing

Experiments were conducted to evaluate the microstructural characteristics of pure (4N) gold processed by equal-channel angular pressing using routes A or Bc. Using atomic force microscopy and X-ray diffraction, it is shown that, although these two routes lead to similar dislocation densities of ∼1.5–1.7 × 1015 m−2 and similar average grain sizes of ∼460–490 nm, there are significant differences in the shearing patterns and in the densities of planar faults.