Ductile-brittle transition in random porous Au

Abstract

We report experimental results describing the mechanical breakdown of random porous Au which is a new material specifically developed for this study. Digital image analysis was used to characterize the microstructures of the samples which varied by more than 2 orders of magnitude in length scale. The porous Au undergoes a microstructurally controlled ductile-brittle transition. Similar transitions have been found in numerical simulations by Kahng et al. [Phys. Rev. B 37, 7625 (1988)].