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The Inverse Hall-Petch Effect—Fact or Artifact?

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Abstract

This paper critically reviews the data in the literature which gives softening—the inverse Hall-Petch effect—at the finest nanoscale grain sizes. The difficulties with obtaining artifactfree samples of nanocrystalline materials will be discussed along with the problems of measurement of the average grain size distribution. Computer simulations which predict the inverse Hall-Petch effect are also noted as well as the models which have been proposed for the effect. It is concluded that while only a few of the experiments which have reported the inverse Hall-Petch effect are free from obvious or possible artifacts, these few along with the predictions of computer simulations suggest it is real. However, it seems that it should only be observed for grain sizes less than about 10 nm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Campus Box 7907, Raleigh, NC, 27695-7907, USA

    Carl C. Koch & J. Narayan

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  1. Carl C. Koch
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  2. J. Narayan
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Koch, C.C., Narayan, J. The Inverse Hall-Petch Effect—Fact or Artifact?. MRS Online Proceedings Library 634, 511 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-634-B5.1.1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-634-B5.1.1

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