Colossal grain growth yields single-crystal metal foils by contact-free annealing

Turning many into one Single-crystal metal foils are valuable for their surface properties that allow for synthesis of materials like graphene. Jin et al. present a strategy for creating colossal single-crystal metal foils called “contact-free annealing” (see the Perspective by Rollett). The method relies on hanging and heating commercially available, inexpensive, cold-rolled metal foils. Almost as if by magic, the polycrystalline grains rotate and anneal into a large single-crystal sheet with a specific crystal orientation. The strategy allows for the creation of much larger and much cheaper single-crystal metal foils. Science, this issue p. 1021; see also p. 996 Contact-free annealing allows for the synthesis of large single-crystal metal foils. Single-crystal metals have distinctive properties owing to the absence of grain boundaries and strong anisotropy. Commercial single-crystal metals are usually synthesized by bulk crystal growth or by deposition of thin films onto substrates, and they are expensive and small. We prepared extremely large single-crystal metal foils by “contact-free annealing” from commercial polycrystalline foils. The colossal grain growth (up to 32 square centimeters) is achieved by minimizing contact stresses, resulting in a preferred in-plane and out-of-plane crystal orientation, and is driven by surface energy minimization during the rotation of the crystal lattice followed by “consumption” of neighboring grains. Industrial-scale production of single-crystal metal foils is possible as a result of this discovery.

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