Grain growth of CuO nanocrystal activated by high energy ball milling

X-ray Diffraction (XRD), small-angle X-ray scattering, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray Analysis were used to investigate the effect of controlled high energy ball milling (HEBM) on the average volume weighted crystallite size, V and weighted average microstrain, <ε>, of nanostructures of CuO prepared by solid state reaction. The starting material, S0, consists of almost strain free nanocrystals of monoclinic CuO with V ∼ 20nm , as determined by XRD data Rietveld analysis. It was found that after an initial decrease of V and increase of <ε>, the values of these parameters go through a steady-state stage followed by an increase of an order of magnitude in after a period of only 120 m of HEBM. According to the results here presented, the presence of small amounts of contaminants in the starting material can have an influence on the kinetics of crystal growth in HEBM CuO