Grain boundary misorientation and thermal grooving in cube-textured Ni and Ni-Cr tape

AFM and EBSD characterization has been carried out to measure the degree of grain boundary grooving in cube-textured Ni and Ni-10wt%Cr substrates. Low angle grain boundary grooves are found to be consistently shallower than grooves at high angle boundaries. Our results suggest that the recrystallization of pure Ni substrates in a Ar-H, atmosphere rather than vacuum may be beneficial in minimizing groove depth. Grain boundary grooves in Ni-10wt%Cr tape were found to be deeper than in pure Ni, consistent with the higher temperature used for recrystallization.