Practical applications for electrodeposited nanocrystalline materials

Electrodeposition provides a cost-effective means of producing fully dense nanocrystalline (10nm-100nm avg. grain size) metals, alloys, and metal-matr ix composites as coatings or free-standing forms (foil, sheet, wire, comple x shapes). The electrosynthesis approach is highly adaptable to conventiona l industrial material processes, yielding significant material and process improvements from relatively small capital equipment and process modificati ons. In this paper, several examples of current and emerging commercial app lications for this technology are presented. (C) 1999 Acta Metallurgica Inc .