Feasibility Study on Microstructural Evolution and Stability in Nanocrystalline Nickel

这是一项可行性研究提案，由Faulkner教授持有的日本/EPSRC合作基金GR/S37999发起。本提案中提到的研究助理Andrej Aleshin博士是参与日本项目的团队的一员。在该项目中研究了一些Ni纳米晶体（NC），这项工作激发了研究此类材料的新思路，得益于我们小组在偏析物存在下的晶界和晶界迁移方面的专业知识。我们希望在为期一年的可行性研究中探索使用一种新的方法来研究NC中的晶粒生长。如果它是成功的，将寻求进一步的支持，扩大的结果，以充分解释在NC晶粒生长的机制，并开拓新的想法，如何杂质添加到NC可能被用来控制这种材料的晶粒尺寸稳定性。

This is a feasibility study proposal, instigated by a collaborative Japanese/EPSRC grant GR/S37999, held by Professor Faulkner. The research assistant named in this proposal, Dr. Andrej Aleshin, was part of the team participating in the Japanese project. Some Ni nanocrystals (NCs) were studied in that project and this work has inspired new ideas for studying such materials with the benefit of our group's expertise on grain boundaries and grain boundary migration in the presence of segregants. We wish to explore the use of a new method for studying grain growth in NCs during this yearlong feasibility study. If it is successful, further support will be sought to enlarge on the findings to explain fully the mechanisms of grain growth in NCs and to exploit new ideas on how impurity additions to NCs might be used to control the grain size stability in such materials.