Dealloying and morphology evolution of ordered and disordered Cu₃Au

This research compares the electrochemical behavior and morphology evolution of nanoporous gold made from dealloying parent-phase ordered and disordered Cu₃Au. Using electron backscatter diffraction, we found that dealloying of both sets of Cu-Au samples leaves the grain orientations and grain shapes essentially unaltered with respect to that of the parent phase alloys. The mean ligament diameter, characterized by digital image analysis, made from the disordered alloy was 124 nm and that from the ordered alloy was 135 nm. A statistical T-test showed that this difference was not significant.