Study on grain size dependence of mechanical properties of nano-grained Cu–Ni alloy thin films using molecular dynamics and pulsed electrodeposition

In the present work, effect of grain size on the mechanical properties of nano-grained thin films of Cu–Ni alloy has been investigated through molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and experiments. The thin film is designed to have enhanced hardness and Young's modulus by altering grain sizes using MD simulations. Simulations have predicted that the thin film with average grain size of 12.45 nm has highest values of hardness and Young's modulus. The targeted thin film is developed by pulsed electrodeposition technique under controlled experimental parameters. Different characterisation techniques were adopted to evaluate the properties of the thin film produced. The experimental results of mechanical properties were found to be in good agreement with those predicted by MD simulations.