High strength-high conductivity nanostructured copper wires prepared by spark plasma sintering and room-temperature severe plastic deformation

A pure copper cylinder with micrometric grains was prepared by spark plasma sintering and was wire-drawn at room temperature. The ultimate tensile strength of the conducting wires is 600 MPa at room temperature. This originates from the propagation of dislocations by an Orowan mechanism in grains smaller than 250 nm.