Nature and density of lattice defects in ball milled nanostructured copper

Copper powder of 99.9% purity with particle size in the micrometer range was subjected to high energy ball milling by milling times between 2 and 24 h applying stearic acid as surfactant. The nature and density of lattice defects were determined using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray line profile analysis (XPA). The DSC measurements exhibit a considerable drop of the total stored energy with increasing ball milling time indicating a surprising decrease of lattice defect concentrations by more than one order of magnitude. The results from XPA, however, show that neither the dislocation density, nor the crystallite size can account for this behavior. Rather it is to be attributed to a high concentration of deformation induced vacancy type defects, with their density gradually decreasing during ongoing milling.