J Mater Sci

The Physics of Metal Plasticity: In honor of Professor Hussein Zbib

Evolution of residual stress and interface coherency

and their impact on deformation mechanisms in Al/
Ti multilayers
Wenbo Wang1, Sina Izadi2, Hesham Mraied2, Chuang Deng3,*, and Wenjun Cai1,*

1
Department of Materials and Science Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA
3
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Manitoba, 75A Chancellors Circle, Winnipeg, MB R3T 5V6, Canada

Received: 15 July 2023 ABSTRACT

Accepted: 29 August 2023
© The Author(s), under
exclusive licence to Springer
Science+Business Media, LLC,
part of Springer Nature, 2023
Hardness of nanostructured metallic multilayers (NMMs) are often understood
from their dependence on individual layer thickness (h), yet little is known about
the impacts exerted by other microstructural factors. In this work, the effects of
residual stress and interface coherency on the deformation mechanisms of Al/Ti
NMMs with h = 2.5–52 nm were studied via experiments and molecular dynamics
simulations. The residual stress was found to be tensile in Ti layers and compres-
sive in Al layers in general, both of which tended to increase with decreasing h.
Tensile stress of more than 2 GPa were measured in the Ti layers at h < 10 nm.
Such high stress was related to the more coherent interfaces at small h, as con-
firmed by transmission electron microscopy analysis. Finally, molecular dynamics
simulations showed that at h = 2.5 nm, the coherent interfaces were more effective
barriers to dislocation initiation and transfer than the incoherent ones.

Introduction heterogeneity on the surface [4]. The high interfacial

Nanostructured metallic multilayers (NMMs) con-
sisting of alternating layers of different metals or
alloys have attracted significant interests due to their
potential to achieve improved mechanical, optical and
electrochemical properties compared to monolithic
coatings of equivalent thickness [1–3]. Such layered
structure can strengthen the material by confining the
dislocation movements via Hall–Petch and related
mechanisms without causing unfavorable chemical
area between the layers provides enhanced mechani-
cal strength, improved thermal stability, and modi-
fied electrical and optical properties compared to
their bulk counterparts. NMMs find applications in
various fields, including microelectronics, catalysis,
sensors, and coatings, due to their tailored properties
and potential for improved performance in specific
applications.
NMMs exhibit a well-known length-scale-depend-
ent strengthening and deformation mechanism

Handling Editor: Tariq Khraishi.

Address correspondence to E-mail: Chuang.Deng@umanitoba.ca; caiw@vt.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-023-08908-3

Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Vol.:(0123456789)

behavior [5–7], which has been studied using dislo-
cation-mediated plasticity models such as disloca-
tion pile-up model, confined layer slip (CLS) model
etc. [7, 8]. The deformation behavior depends on the
thickness of the layer (h), resulting in three distinct
modes [7, 9, 10]. When the thickness falls within the
submicron range, dislocations accumulate at the inter-
faces and the strength increases as the layer thickness
decreases following the Hall–Petch relationship. In
the range of a few to a few tens of nanometers, the
interfaces are too close for dislocation pile-up to
occur, leading to the breakdown of Hall–Petch hard-
ening. Instead, the deformation mechanism involves
the movement of individual dislocations bending
between the interfaces, known as confined layer slip
(CLS) mechanism. In this regime, the yield strength
increases with decreasing layer thickness, following a
relationship of 𝜎 ∝ ln (h)∕h [7]. At extreme small layer
thickness (h < 10 nm), the multilayers are also known
as superlattices. In the regime, the strength become
less dependent on layer thickness but highly sensitive
to the structure and properties of the interfaces such
as coherency strains [11].
Unlike layer thickness or interface coherency, the
effect of residual stress on the mechanical properties
of NMMs is less understood [12]. NMM are often
manufactured via thin film deposition methods such
as physical vapor deposition or electrodeposition.
During the deposition process, atoms or molecules
from the vapor phase condense and form layers.
The growth of each layer can induce stress due to
lattice mismatch, defects, or strain accumulation. If
heating was applied to the substrate or environment
during the deposition process, due to differences in
coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) between
the alternative layered materials and the substrate,
additional residual stress would develop when the
film cools down to room temperature. Earlier work
also showed that the magnitude of residual stress
is highly sensitive to the overall film thickness. For
example, the residual stress changes through Vol-
mer–Weber growth mechanism from compressive to
tensile and then compressive again while the layer
thickness is increased. Due to the ultra-fine layer
thickness, high levels of residual stress can develop
in superlattice coatings (i.e., NMMs with h< 10 nm).
For example, residual stress of Au layers (h = 9 Å)
in Au/Ni NMMs approaches ~ 3.9 GPa, significantly
higher than the yield stress of bulk Au [13]. Past stud-
ies indicate a direct relationship between the residual
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
J Mater Sci
stress and coating strength [14–16]. For example,
positive (or tensile) residual stress in monolithic Ti
reduces the overall strength of the coating [17] and
negative (compressive) residual stress increases the
strength of Al coating [18].
Measuring the residual stress is often challenging
experimentally. For monolithic thin films, the macro-
scopic stress or strain can be measured relative easily
using the curvature method by a stylus profilometry
or laser and white-light interferometry. The curvature
developed of the film is then used to calculate the
residual stress in the whole film. The residual stress
or strain in NMMs needs to be measured within indi-
vidual layers, which is highly sensitive to interface
coherency and individual layer thickness. In addition,
a complete 3D representation of the stress field, which
requires 6 independent stress components, is often not
reported. In thin film NMMs, residual stress is most
often reported as a scalar, corresponding to the normal
stress component in the film growth direction, while
normal stress on the film plane direction or any shear
component are hard to measure.
X-ray diffraction using the ­sin2ψ method is a widely
used technique to determine the residual stress in thin
films [19], where Ψ is the angle between incident-dif-
fracted bisector and the normal of sample surface. For
example, Ljungcrantz et al. [20] showed that during dc
magnetron sputtering, the residual stress developed
in Ti thin films deposited on Si substrate changes
from ~ 0.4 GPa tensile to ~ 0.4 GPa compressive as
the argon pressure decreased below 2.5 mTorr. Staf-
ford et al. [21] found that in electrodeposited Al thin
films on Au substrate, the residual stress was initially
compressive at small film thickness (> ~50–100 nm),
and quickly becomes tensile (~ 25–75 MPa) at larger
thicknesses due to lattice mismatch between Al and
Au as well as AlAu alloying. In terms of multilayers,
Gu et al. [22] measured the residual strain field of
CrN/AlN multilayers with bilayer period of 6.0, 5.5,
and 2.0 nm. They concluded that a tensile strain of
~ 0.007–0.015 develops in the CrN layers while a com-
pressive strain of ~ − 0.013 to 0.017 develops in the
AlN layers. Recently, Todt et al. [23] performed in-situ
nanoindentation of CrNi-AlN superlattice thin films
using synchrotron X-ray nanoprobe. They found that
a very high compressive stress of ~ 13 GPa developed
under the indent, followed by a recovery by tensile
stress of ~ 1.4 GPa.
Despite prior studies, the reports on the measure-
ment of residual stress and interface coherency of
J Mater Sci
NMMs are still lacking. Hence, the purpose of this
work is to (1) measure the evolution of residual stress
in Al/Ti NMMs with different h, (2) determine the
effects of layer thickness on the interface coherency,
and (3) quantify the effects of residual stress/strain
and interface coherency on the deformation behavior
and hardness of NMMs. Prior studies on NMMs often
focus on FCC/FCC or FCC/BCC types, Al/Ti NMMs is
chosen here to represent an FCC/HCP system, which is
less studied. In this work, experimental measurements
and molecular dynamics simulations are integrated to
shed light on the design of future high strength NMMs
via engineering of internal strains and interfaces.
Experimental and computational methods
Equal-spaced Al/Ti NMMs with different h from 52 to
2.5 nm, as well as monolithic Al and Ti thin films, were
deposited on Si (100) substrate using a SFI sputtering
tool with an Eratron 8210 DC power supply, as listed
in Table 1, following the procedure described in [24].
In all NMMs, the Al layer is always the topmost layer.
One of the reasons for selecting Al as the topmost layer
is due to its good corrosion resistance, as described in
our previous work [25]. PANalytical X’Pert PRO dif-
fractometer (Cu Kα, 1.54 Å) was applied to conduct
grazing incident XRD (GIXRD) and residual stress
measurement at 45 kV and 40 mA. The conventional
Bragg–Brentano configuration was selected to keep
the substrate peak intensity proportionally low, com-
pared to the constituent phases of the thin films, and
a grazing incident angle (α) of 3° was used, giving
an estimated penetration depth of ~ 1.0 μm that is
much larger than h of all NMMs. According to ­sin2Ψ
method, the diffraction planes of Al (220) and Ti (101 3)
Table 1  Summary of
Sample IDs Hardness
mechanical properties,
(H, GPa)
individual layer thickness (h)
and total film thickness layer
of monolithic Al, Ti thin Al/Ti 2.5 4.94 ± 0.44
films and Al/Ti NMMs Al/Ti 5.2 4.85 ± 0.28
Al/Ti 11.4 4.16 ± 0.49
Al/Ti 30 3.13 ± 0.43
Al/Ti 36 2.87 ± 0.43
Al/Ti 52 2.45 ± 0.29
Al 0.67 ± 0.17
Ti 4.62 ± 0.62
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
were chosen due to obviously distinguish two phases
instead of superposition at ~ 38.5° and measured at Ψ
tilt angles of 0°, ± 10°, ± 15°, ± 30° and ± 35°. The sur-
face morphology of all samples was characterized by
Hitachi Su-70 scanning electron microscopes (SEM).
FEI Tecnai G2 transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
was applied prior and post nanoindentation for char-
acterization of samples under 200 kV acceleration volt-
age. TEM samples were prepared by FEI quanta 200
3D focused ion beam (FIB) using the standard lift-out
method. Before milling, a protective carbon layer with
a thickness of 30–100 nm was first deposited on sam-
ples, followed by Pt deposition up to 200 nm using
electron beam and 2–3 μm using ion beam. To meas-
ure their mechanical properties and induce deforma-
tion behaviors of Al/Ti NMMs, nanoindentation tests
using Hysitron Ti900 Triboindenter with a new stand-
ard Berkovich tip were carried out and a more detailed
description of parameters can be found in [24].
Molecular dynamics (MD) was also used to simulate
the nanoindentation of Al/Ti NNMs by using Large-
scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator
(LAMMPS) package [26] with an embedded-atom
method potential for the Al–Ti system [27]. As shown
in Fig. 1, a three-dimensional slab model was used to
model the Al/Ti NNMs with fixing sizes along X, Y
and Z, i.e., ­LX ~ 100.5 nm, ­LY ~ 1.5 nm, ­LZ ~ 63 nm while
varying layer thickness between h = 2.5 and 30 nm.
Periodic boundary conditions were applied to the X
and Y directions while the Z direction was set free. The
coherent Al/Ti {111}/{0001} interfaces were created by
scaling the lattice constant of Ti to match that of Al,
while the incoherent Al/Ti {111}/{0001} interfaces were
created without any scaling. For the latter, interfacial
dislocations were generated after a relaxation by using
conjugate gradient energy minimization at 0 K. Prior
Reduced elastic modulus Individual layer Total film
(Er, GPa) thickness thickness
(h, nm) (nm)
120.14 ± 7.56 2.5 ± 0.3 930
117.57 ± 2.91 5.2 ± 0.6 820
112.89 ± 7.97 11.4 ± 1.1 1566
109.99 ± 7.22 30 ± 1.5 1800
108.99 ± 8.83 36 ± 1.9 2650
106.72 ± 9.17 52 ± 2.4 3000
87.2 ± 14.90 N/A 2000
119.15 ± 11.13 N/A 1200

Figure 1  a Schematic nanoindentation model set-up of Al/Ti
multilayers, b MD simulation of interface structures with coher-
ent and incoherent, and green atoms represent Al, orange atoms
represent Ti.
to nanoindentation, all models were equilibrated at
300 K under the isothermal–isobaric ensemble (NPT)
and zero pressure for 25 ps. After that, a thin slab
(~ 0.5 nm thick) at the bottom of the model was fixed
and the indentation was performed by following the
same protocol as described in [28], i.e., by moving a
cylindrical virtual indenter at a constant velocity of
5 m/s along the Z direction. During this process, a
repulsive force was exerted to the Al/Ti NNMs accord-
ing to the following equation:
p(r) = K(r − R) 2
(1)
where p(r) is the repulsive force, R is the radius of the
indenter, r is the distance from the atoms in the Al/Ti
NNMs to the center axis of the cylindrical indenter,
and K is the specified force constant. In this work, R
Figure 2  SEM images of the surface of as-deposited Al/Ti NMMs with different individual layer thickness.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
J Mater Sci
is set to be 40 nm, and K is 10 eV Å.−3. An isother-
mal–isobaric ensemble (NPT) was maintained during
the indentation process (with pressure P = 0 along the
X and Y directions and temperature T = 300 K). The
hardness of each Al/Ti NNM was estimated by com-
puting the mean contact pressure ­Pm at the yield point
as [29]
Pm = p/A (2)
where p is the total load applied by the indenter and A
is the projected contact area. A can be approximated as
A = a*LY where a was directly measured from the snap-
shot of the indented sample as shown in Fig. 1a. Post-
visualization and analysis of the simulation results
were mainly performed using OVITO [30] with the
common neighbor analysis [31] and local atomic shear
strain [32].
Results and discussion
Microstructure and residual stress
Figure 2 shows the SEM images of as-deposited Al/
Ti multilayers with nanoscale surface nodules, rep-
resenting the formation of ultrafine microstructures.
The arithmetic average surface roughness ­(Ra) and
nodule diameter of all Al/Ti NMMs were summa-
rized in Fig. 3. As a comparison, the surface proper-
ties of monolithic Al and Ti films were also displayed.
J Mater Sci
Samples with thicker h can be found with coarser nod-
ules and rougher surface, despite the slight deviation
at h = 2.5 nm, as reported previously [33]. It should be
noted that the nodule size often corresponds to the
in-plane grain size (d), which affects the mechanical
properties in polycrystalline multilayered thin films
[34]. However, in this work, since d is much larger
than h, thus the smaller of the two (i.e., h) would be the
dominant factor on the strength. Figure 4a shows the
GIXRD patterns of all multilayers and Fig. 4b plots the
residual stress measured from Al (220) and Ti (101 3)
diffractions. Regardless of the size of h, tensile stress is
built up in Ti layers, which is consistent with previous
results under similar deposition conditions [20]. The
magnitude of the residual tensile stress in Ti layers
reaches above 2 GPa when h is below ~ 10 nm. On the
Figure 3  Summary of grain diameter (square symbol) and
arithmetic average surface roughness ­(Ra) measured from SEM
images of all as-deposited Al/Ti NMMs and pure Ti and Al thin
films.
Figure 4  a GIXRD patterns
and b measured residual
stress of Al and Ti layers
of all as-deposited Al/Ti
NMMs.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
other hand, the Al layers developed mostly compres-
sive stresses, where the highest compressive stress was
observed at h = 2.5 nm. It is generally believed that
internal tensile stress will decrease the hardness while
compressive stress does not have a significant effect on
hardness [18]. However, at present, it is a challenge
to separate the effects of both tensile and compres-
sive stress originated from the individual layers on
the overall mechanical properties of the multilayers.
Length scale‑dependent hardness
The hardness and reduced elastic modulus of mon-
olithic Al, Ti films and Al/Ti multilayered samples
are summarized in Table 1. The hardness gradually
increased as h decreased, reaching the peak strength of
~ 4.94 GPa at h = 2.5 nm, indicating the size-dependent
deformation behaviors. Figure 5a shows the hardness
versus the inverse square root of individual layer
thickness (h−1/2) for Al/Ti multilayer and other typi-
cal NMMs including FCC or HCP phase [6, 35, 36].
Among all samples plotted, Al/Ti multilayers exhib-
its the highest hardness at small h. At thick h, the
hardness is in agreement well with the prediction of
Hall–Petch model, which is defined as:
H = H0 + kh−1∕2 (3)
where H is the material hardness, ­H0 (~ 0.32 GPa) is
the intercept point with y axis on H versus ­h−1/2 plot, k
(~ 15.23 GPa (nm)1/2) is the Hall–Petch slope obtained
from fitting the linear section of data points (i.e., the
red dashed line in Fig. 5a). As discussed in the intro-
duction, the Hall–Petch model will severely overes-
timate strength when h is further decreased due to
the insufficient space of layers for the propagation of

Figure 5  a Hardness as a function of individual layer thickness
for Al/Ti and other typical NMMs including FCC or HCP phases.
b Hardness as a function of individual layer thickness of all Al/
dislocations. When h is around a few tens of nanom-
eters, the plastic flow will be constrained to one layer
and the single dislocation glides tend to propagate
with the layer in the form of hairpin [11]. In this
regime, CLS model is more appropriate to estimate the
shear stress required to cause plastic deformation as:
𝛼h�
[ ]
𝜇b ( 4 − 𝜈 )
τcls = M ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ln
f C
− + (4)
8𝜋h� 1−𝜈 b h 𝜆
and
𝜇b
C= (5)
(1 − 𝜈)
where M (M = 3.1) is the Taylor factor, μ
(μ = 44 GPa) is the shear modulus, b (b = 0.17 nm) is the
Burgers vector, h′ is the layer thickness measured par-
allel to the slip plane, ν (ν = 0.32) is the Poissonʼs ratio,
f is the interface stress, α is the core cut-off param-
eter, and λ is the spacing of the interface which can
be found by fitting the experimental results from the
current research. The tendency of calculated hardness
by CLS model is shown in Fig. 5b, which is consistent
with experimental results, confirming that this model
is effective in the current length scales. Notably, an
overshoot of the CLS predicted hardness is found at
around 2–5 nm, suggesting that a different deforma-
tion mechanism is at play, where strength depends
on the interface coherency and the interface barrier
strength, instead of layer thickness.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
J Mater Sci
Ti NMMs. The scatted data corresponds to experimental meas-
urements and the solid line corresponds to predications by CLS
model.
TEM characterization of indented structure
To characterize their deformed microstructure caused
by nanoindentation, representative HRTEM cross-sec-
tional images of the h = 30 nm and h = 2.5 nm samples
were shown in Fig. 6. Typical chemically modulated
structures and the layer thickness refinement can
be clearly seen around the deformed area when h is
thick (Fig. 6b) with incoherent interfaces. While the
more coherent interfaces are observed at h = 2.5 nm in
Fig. 6a, indicating the phase transformation from HCP
to FCC in the Ti layer at small h, consistent with the
results in Fig. 4a and our previous work [24]. How-
ever, it should also be pointed out that earlier work
[37] on Al/Ti multilayers showed that fcc Ti is only
observed in ion-milled TEM foils of Al/Ti multilayer
thin films and not in X-ray diffraction. The impact of
impurities (e.g., hydrogen) [38] during TEM thin-foil
milling [39] could be one of the reasons. Other factors,
including the effects of stacking sequence change and
energy tradeoff between the bulk elastic strain energy
and surface free energy, on the Ti layer phase transfor-
mation has been discussed in our previous study [24]
and by others [5, 40]. Next, using molecular dynam-
ics simulations, we further show that such differences
in interface coherency further affects the deformation
behavior, even under the same h.
J Mater Sci
Figure 6  High resolution
bright field TEM images
after nanoindentation of a Al/
Ti at h = 2.5 nm and b Al/
Ti at h = 30 nm. Inserted in
a is zoomed-out of Al/Ti at
h = 2.5 nm after nanoindenta-
tion.
Effects of interface coherency and layer
thickness on deformation mechanisms
To understand the effects of h and interface coherency
on the deformation behaviors of Al/Ti NMMs at the
atomic scale, MD simulated indentation model was set
up by two types of interface microstructure: coherent
and incoherent, which depends on the atomic match-
ing degree across the interface [41], as shown in Fig. 1.
In comparison, the load-penetration depth curves of
all Al/Ti NMMs samples with incoherent interface
(Fig. 7a) and coherent interface (Fig. 7b) after indenta-
tion were presented. It can be seen that the load and
penetration depth at which yielding occurrence (i.e.,
the first peak) are larger in the structures with inco-
herent interfaces than the coherent ones, except at
h = 2.5 nm. These results indicate that the incoherent
interface state causes higher hardness than the coher-
ent interface when h exceeds 4 nm, but the coherent
interface leads higher hardness at h = 2.5 nm (Fig. 7c),
fully consistent with the experimental results.
The subsurface residual strain and dislocation
movements when first yielding occurred at h = 15 nm
and h = 2.5 nm, representing the typical contrast
between coherent and incoherent interfaces, were
presented in Figs. 8 and 9. At h = 15 nm, regardless
of incoherent and coherent interfaces, the plastic flow
will be constrained in the soft Al layer (Fig. 8), simi-
lar to the previously reported in Cu/Zr multilayer
[42]. The dislocations are absorbed and dispersed at
the interfaces, resulting in layer bending as a result
of that applied stress, which is smaller than the Al/
Ti interface barrier stress. In addition, due to the dis-
continuity in dislocation slip, the barrier stress of
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
incoherent type interfaces is considered to be larger
than the coherent interfaces when h is thick, causing
higher hardness. When the layer thickness is relatively
small (i.e., h = 2.5 nm), the underlying plastic defor-
mation becomes dominated by dislocation slip across
the interfaces. Unlike the coherent interface, interfacial
dislocation can be observed in the Al/Ti interfaces due
to the high lattice mismatch of Al and Ti (Fig. 9b). At
this scale, not only is the strength of Al layer increased,
resulting in obvious co-deformation between Al and Ti
layers, but also a HCP to FCC phase transformation of
Ti layer is observed (circled areas in Fig. 9c). In Fig. 9a,
the dislocation core at the stress concentration area
in incoherent interface was observed at the penetra-
tion depth 3.75 nm and rapidly propagates towards
deep layers when penetration depth reached 3.8 nm
(Fig. 9b), accompanied with interface rotation. How-
ever, as for coherent interface (Fig. 9c), the network of
dislocation was only localized in the top few layers,
suggesting its higher plastic deformation resistance
than the incoherent interface.
Conclusions
In summary, the hardness, residual stress, and defor-
mation mechanism of Al/Ti NMMs with alternating
FCC/HCP structure are evaluated by nanoindentation
experiments, advanced materials characterization,
and molecular dynamics simulations. In general, a
tensile stress develops in the Ti layer and compres-
sive stress in the Al layers, with increasing magnitude
at smaller h. At the same time, hardness increases as
the layer thickness decreases, reaching a peak strength
 J Mater Sci

Figure 7  Nanoindenta-
tion force-penetration depth
curves of a incoherent Al/
Ti and b coherent Al/Ti with
different h, and c summary
of simulated hardness as a
function of h under different
interface structures.

Figure 8  MD simulation

results of von Mises atomic
strain and dynamic response
after nanoindentation of a
incoherent Al/Ti at h = 15 nm
and b coherent Al/Ti at
h = 15 nm.

Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

J Mater Sci
Figure 9  MD simulation results of von Mises atomic strain
and dynamic response after nanoindentation of incoherent Al/Ti
2.5 nm at penetration depth of a 3.75 nm and b 3.8 nm, and c
coherent Al/Ti 2.5 nm at penetration depth of 2.9 nm. The top
of ~ 4.94 GPa at 2.5 nm layer thickness, owing to its
length-scale-dependent deformation characteristics. In
thick h regime, the predicted strength by CLS model
is well consistent with the experimental results and
MD simulation results reveal that the interface bar-
rier strength of incoherent interface is larger than
that of coherent interfaces. However, at h = 2.5 nm,
coherent interfaces will cause higher hardness and
a deviation from CLS model. Molecular dynamics
simulation shows that at such small h, the coherent
interfaces becomes more effective barriers to disloca-
tion transfer and the first dislocation nucleation occurs
at much smaller depths than those of the incoherent
counterparts.
Data and code availability
The data that supports the findings of this study
are available upon request from the corresponding
authors.
Acknowledgements
This research was financially supported by the
US National Science Foundation under Grant
CMMI-1855651.
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
row images represent the dislocation activities via the bottom row
images represent the corresponding phases (green: aluminum
FCC, orange: titanium HCP).
Author contributions
W W: Data curation, Visualization, Investigation,
Writing-Original Draft. SI: Data curation, Visualiza-
tion, Investigation. HM: Data curation, Investigation.
DC: Software, Investigation, Writing-Reviewing and
Editing. WC: Writing-Reviewing and Editing, Fund-
ing acquisition.
Declarations
Conflict of interest The authors declare that there is
no conflict of interest.
Ethical approval Not applicable.
References:
[ 1] Xie TT, Mao SD, Yu C, Wang SJ, Song ZL (2012) Struc-
ture, corrosion, and hardness properties of Ti/Al multilay-
ers coated on NdFeB by magnetron sputtering. Vacuum
86(10):1583–1588
[ 2] Creus J, Top EH, Savall C, Refait P, Ducros C, Sanchette
F (2008) Mechanical and corrosion properties of dc mag-
netron sputtered Al/Cr multilayers. Surf Coat Technol
202(16):4047–4055

[ 3] Wang J, Misra A (2023) Plastic homogeneity in nanoscale
heterostructured binary and multicomponent metallic
eutectics: an overview. Curr Opin Solid State Mater Sci
27(1):101055
[ 4] Misra A, Göken M, Mara NA, Beyerlein IJ (2021) Hierar-
chical and heterogeneous multiphase metallic nanomateri-
als and laminates. MRS Bull 46:236–243
[ 5] Zhang Y, Xue S, Li Q, Li J, Ding J, Niu T, Su R, Wang
H, Zhang X (2019) Size dependent strengthening in high
strength nanotwinned Al/Ti multilayers. Acta Mater
175:466–476
[ 6] Lu Y, Kotoka R, Ligda J, Cao B, Yarmolenko S, Schuster
B, Wei Q (2014) The microstructure and mechanical behav-
ior of Mg/Ti multilayers as a function of individual layer
thickness. Acta Mater 63:216–231
[ 7] Misra A, Hirth J, Hoagland R (2005) Length-scale-depend-
ent deformation mechanisms in incoherent metallic multi-
layered composites. Acta Mater 53(18):4817–4824
[ 8] Wu S, Hou Z, Zhang J, Wang Y, Wu K, Liu G, Sun J (2019)
Understanding the strength softening of Zr/Mo and Zr/Ti
nanostructured multilayers. Scr Mater 172:61–65
[ 9] Misra A, Verdier M, Kung H, Embury JD, Hirth JP (1999)
Deformation mechanism maps for polycrystalline metallic
multiplayers. Scr Mater 41(9):973–979
[10] Misra A, Kung H (2001) Deformation behavior of
nanostructured metallic multilayers. Adv Eng Mater
3(4):217–222
[11] Wang J, Misra A (2011) An overview of interface-dom-
inated deformation mechanisms in metallic multilayers.
Curr Opin Solid State Mater sci 15(1):20–28
[12] Misra A, Kung H, Embury J (2004) Preface to the view-
point set on: deformation and stability of nanoscale metal-
lic multilayers. Elsevier, The Netherlands
[13] Thomas O, Gergaud P, Labat S, Barrallier L, Charaï A,
Alfonso C, Gilles B, Marty A (1996) Residual stresses in
metallic multilayers. J Phys IV 6(C7):C7-125
[14] Labat S, Gergaud P, Thomas O, Gilles B, Marty A (2000)
Interdependence of elastic strain and segregation in metal-
lic multilayers: an X-ray diffraction study of (111) Au/Ni
multilayers. J Appl Phys 87(3):1172–1181
[15] Berger S, Spaepen F (1995) The Ag/Cu interface stress.
Nanostruct Mater 6(1–4):201–204
[16] Bain JA, Chyung LJ, Brennan S, Clemens BM (1991) Elas-
tic strains and coherency stresses in Mo/Ni multilayers.
Phys Rev B 44(3):1184–1192
[17] Chang RC, Chen FY, Chuang CT, Tung YC (2010)
Residual stresses of sputtering titanium thin films at
various substrate temperatures. J Nanosci Nanotechnol
10(7):4562–4567
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
J Mater Sci
[18] Huber N, Heerens J (2008) On the effect of a general resid-
ual stress state on indentation and hardness testing. Acta
Mater 56(20):6205–6213
[19] Goudeau P, Badawi KF, Naudon A, Gladyszewski G (1993)
Determination of the residual-stress tensor in Cu/W multi-
layers by X-ray-diffraction. Appl Phys Lett 62(3):246–248
[20] Ljungcrantz H, Hultman L, Sundgren JE, Johansson
S, Kristensen N, Schweitz JÅ, Shute C (1993) Residual
stresses and fracture properties of magnetron sputtered Ti
films on Si microelements. J Vac Sci Technol A: Vac Surf
Films 11(3):543–553
[21] Stafford GR, Kongstein OE, Haarberg GM (2006)
In situ stress measurements during aluminum deposition
from ­A lCl 3-EtMeImCl ionic liquid. J Electrochem Soc
153(4):C207
[22] Gu X, Zhang Z, Bartosik M, Mayrhofer PH, Duan H (2017)
Dislocation densities and alternating strain fields in CrN/
AlN nanolayers. Thin Solid Films 638:189–200
[23] Todt J, Krywka C, Zhang ZL, Mayrhofer PH, Keckes J,
Bartosik M (2020) Indentation response of a superlattice
thin film revealed by in-situ scanning X-ray nanodiffrac-
tion. Acta Mater 195:425–432
[24] Izadi S, Mraied H, Cai W (2015) Tribological and mechani-
cal behavior of nanostructured Al/Ti multilayers. Surf Coat
Technol 275:374–383
[25] Wang W, Wang K, Zhang Z, Chen J, Mou T, Michel FM,
Xin H, Cai W (2021) Ultrahigh tribocorrosion resistance of
metals enabled by nano-layering. Acta Mater 206:116609
[26] Thompson AP, Aktulga HM, Berger R, Bolintineanu DS,
Brown WM, Crozier PS, in’t Veld PJ, Kohlmeyer A, Moore
SG, Nguyen TD, Shan R, Stevens MJ, Tranchida J, Trott C,
Plimpton SJ (2022) LAMMPS-a flexible simulation tool for
particle-based materials modeling at the atomic, meso, and
continuum scales. Comput Phys Commun 271:108171
[27] Zope RR, Mishin Y (2003) Interatomic potentials for
atomistic simulations of the Ti-Al system. Phys Rev B
68(2):024102
[28] Deng C, Schuh CA (2012) Atomistic mechanisms of cyclic
hardening in metallic glass. Appl Phys Lett 100(25)
[29] Dupont V, Sansoz F (2009) Molecular dynamics study of
crystal plasticity during nanoindentation in Ni nanowires.
J Mater Res 24(3):948–956
[30] Stukowski A (2010) Visualization and analysis of atomistic
simulation data with OVITO–the open visualization tool.
Model Simul Mater Sci Eng 18(1):015012
[31] Honeycutt JD, Andersen HC (1987) Molecular dynamics
study of melting and freezing of small Lennard–Jones clus-
ters. J Phys Chem 91(19):4950–4963
J Mater Sci
[32] Shimizu F, Ogata S, Li J (2007) Theory of shear banding
in metallic glasses and molecular dynamics calculations.
Mater Trans 48:2923–2927
[33] Pobedinskas P, Bolsée J-C, Dexters W, Ruttens B, Mortet
V, D’Haen J, Manca JV, Haenen K (2012) Thickness
dependent residual stress in sputtered AlN thin films. Thin
Solid Films 522:180–185
[34] Misra A, Verdier M, Lu Y, Kung H, Mitchell T, Nastasi M,
Embury J (1998) Structure and mechanical properties of
Cu-X (X = Nb, Cr, Ni) nanolayered composites. Scr Mater
39(4–5):555–560
[35] Fu E, Li N, Misra A, Hoagland R, Wang H, Zhang X (2008)
Mechanical properties of sputtered Cu/V and Al/Nb multi-
layer films. Mater Sci Eng: A 493(1–2):283–287
[36] Ham B, Zhang X (2011) High strength Mg/Nb nanolayer
composites. Mater Sci Eng: A 528(4–5):2028–2033
[37] Banerjee R, Dregia SA, Fraser HL (1999) Stability of fcc
titanium in titanium/aluminum multilayers. Acta Mater
47(15–16):4225–4231
[38] Banerjee R, Zhang X-D, Dregia S, Fraser H (1999) Phase
stability in Al/Ti multilayers. Acta Mater 47(4):1153–1161
[39] Bonevich J, Van Heerden D, Josell D (1999) Face-centered-
cubic titanium: an artifact in titanium/aluminum multilay-
ers. J Mater Res 14:1977–1981
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
[40] Zhang Y, Li Q, Gong M, Xue S, Ding J, Li J, Cho J, Niu T,
Su R, Richter N (2020) Deformation behavior and phase
transformation of nanotwinned Al/Ti multilayers. Appl
Surf Sci 527:146776
[41] An M, Deng Q, Su M, Song H, Li Y (2017) Dependence of
deformation mechanisms on layer spacing in multilayered
Ti/Al composite. Mater Sci Eng: A 684:491–499
[42] Zhang J, Lei S, Liu Y, Niu J, Chen Y, Liu G, Zhang
X, Sun J (2012) Length scale-dependent deformation
behavior of nanolayered Cu/Zr micropillars. Acta Mater
60(4):1610–1622
Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner)
holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing
agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s);
author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of
this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing
agreement and applicable law.
Terms and Conditions
Springer Nature journal content, brought to you courtesy of Springer Nature Customer Service Center GmbH (“Springer Nature”).
Springer Nature supports a reasonable amount of sharing of research papers by authors, subscribers and authorised users (“Users”), for small-
scale personal, non-commercial use provided that all copyright, trade and service marks and other proprietary notices are maintained. By
accessing, sharing, receiving or otherwise using the Springer Nature journal content you agree to these terms of use (“Terms”). For these
purposes, Springer Nature considers academic use (by researchers and students) to be non-commercial.
These Terms are supplementary and will apply in addition to any applicable website terms and conditions, a relevant site licence or a personal
subscription. These Terms will prevail over any conflict or ambiguity with regards to the relevant terms, a site licence or a personal subscription
(to the extent of the conflict or ambiguity only). For Creative Commons-licensed articles, the terms of the Creative Commons license used will
apply.
We collect and use personal data to provide access to the Springer Nature journal content. We may also use these personal data internally within
ResearchGate and Springer Nature and as agreed share it, in an anonymised way, for purposes of tracking, analysis and reporting. We will not
otherwise disclose your personal data outside the ResearchGate or the Springer Nature group of companies unless we have your permission as
detailed in the Privacy Policy.
While Users may use the Springer Nature journal content for small scale, personal non-commercial use, it is important to note that Users may
not:

1. use such content for the purpose of providing other users with access on a regular or large scale basis or as a means to circumvent access
control;
2. use such content where to do so would be considered a criminal or statutory offence in any jurisdiction, or gives rise to civil liability, or is
otherwise unlawful;
3. falsely or misleadingly imply or suggest endorsement, approval , sponsorship, or association unless explicitly agreed to by Springer Nature in
writing;
4. use bots or other automated methods to access the content or redirect messages
5. override any security feature or exclusionary protocol; or
6. share the content in order to create substitute for Springer Nature products or services or a systematic database of Springer Nature journal
content.
In line with the restriction against commercial use, Springer Nature does not permit the creation of a product or service that creates revenue,
royalties, rent or income from our content or its inclusion as part of a paid for service or for other commercial gain. Springer Nature journal
content cannot be used for inter-library loans and librarians may not upload Springer Nature journal content on a large scale into their, or any
other, institutional repository.
These terms of use are reviewed regularly and may be amended at any time. Springer Nature is not obligated to publish any information or
content on this website and may remove it or features or functionality at our sole discretion, at any time with or without notice. Springer Nature
may revoke this licence to you at any time and remove access to any copies of the Springer Nature journal content which have been saved.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Springer Nature makes no warranties, representations or guarantees to Users, either express or implied
with respect to the Springer nature journal content and all parties disclaim and waive any implied warranties or warranties imposed by law,
including merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose.
Please note that these rights do not automatically extend to content, data or other material published by Springer Nature that may be licensed
from third parties.
If you would like to use or distribute our Springer Nature journal content to a wider audience or on a regular basis or in any other manner not
expressly permitted by these Terms, please contact Springer Nature at

onlineservice@springernature.com