Copper has high electrical and thermal conductivity, which is frequently employed in structural and functional materials. In this research, powder metallurgy was used to incorporate boron nanosheets into metal matrix composites to create boron dispersion-enhanced copper matrix composites. The neutron-absorption characteristics of composite materials were investigated, as well as the link between neutron-absorption cross-section and neutron energy. The results told us that the morphology of the second phase on the particle surface is closely related to the size of Cu-B particles, copper and boron correspond atomically to each other on the interface without dislocation or lattice distortion, forming a completely coherent interface, and that the neutron absorption cross-section decreases exponentially as neutron energy increases. In low-energy neutrons with energies less than 0.1 eV, the increase of boron content and 10B abundance in Cu-B alloy will enhance the neutron-absorption capacity of the alloy. Boron dispersion-strengthened copper matrix composites have good neutron-absorption capacity, and the microstructure and size of boron do not affect the neutron-absorption performance of composites with the same content of boron. The hardness of the B-dispersion-strengthened Cu matrix composite obtained by nanoindentation test is about 3.04 GPa. Copper matrix composites with boron dispersion reinforcement exhibit high hardness and neutron-absorption characteristics.
Keywords: Cu-B alloy; boron nanosheets; copper matrix composites; high hardness; neutron absorption.