Electrodeposition of copper foils is a commercially widely used technique whose potential for producing functionally graded materials by deliberate time variation of the deposition parameters has been shown. Due to the presence of superabundant vacancies (stabilized by hydrogen) structural instabilities are strongly enhanced. More detailed knowledge of microstructural details (especially defect changes during annealing and stability at elevated temperatures) is needed for a basic understanding. Electrical residual resistivity isochrones, positron annihilation, Young's modulus and linear thermal expansion of copper foils of 35 μm thickness of different grain size electrodeposited at commercially usual rates are investigated. For all samples structural changes have been observed during the measurements, the strongest influence seems to be due to the annealing out of single vacancies (presumably by releasing hydrogen) and to grain coarsening.    «

Electrodeposition of copper foils is a commercially widely used technique whose potential for producing functionally graded materials by deliberate time variation of the deposition parameters has been shown. Due to the presence of superabundant vacancies (stabilized by hydrogen) structural instabilities are strongly enhanced. More detailed knowledge of microstructural details (especially defect changes during annealing and stability at elevated temperatures) is needed for a basic understanding....    »