Compressibility of nanostructured Fe-Cu materials prepared by mechanical milling

The compressibility of nanostructured Fe-Cu materials prepared by mechanical milling has been investigated by in-situ high-pressure x-ray diffraction using synchrotron radiation. It is found that the bulk modulus of both fcc-Cu and bcc-Fe phases decreases with decreasing grain sizes. The unstable ferromagnetic fcc-FeCu solid solution prepared by mechanical alloying has a bulk modulus of about 85 GPa, which is much smaller than the corresponding values for bulk fcc-Cu and bcc-Fe.