EBSD investigations of equal channel angular extruded copper

Development of nano- and submicron-structured materials has attracted significant research interest in the last ten years [1, 2]. Most recently, an innovative technology called the Equal Channel Angular Extrusion (ECAE) process has demonstrated its capability of producing nano- and submicronstructured metallic alloys with substantial strength improvement [3-8]. ECAE adopts the principle of mechanical attrition and imposes very heavy shear deformation on bulk materials without causing major dimensional changes of the extruded products [3]. It has been suggested that this technology has great advantages over the conventional mechanical attrition of ball milling because it can produce large sized samples free of any residual porosity.