The present investigation is concerned with the influence of solute element atoms on the recrystallization temperature of cold-rolled silver. The materials containing 0.03∼1.8 at% each of Be, Mg, Pd, Cu, Au, Cd, Al, In, Ge, Sn, Pb, Sb, or Bi were cold-rolled to 90% reduction of area and annealed for 10 minutes at various temperatures. The recrystallization temperature was obtained by hardness measurement.
At any rate, all solute elements raised the recrystallization temperature of silver with increasing their content. The most pronounced influence on the recrystallization temperature was found to be brought in by the addition of the elements which have a much larger absolute linear size factor, excess valence and smaller maximum solid solubility. The magnitude of the increase in recrystallization temperature seems to be related to the binding energy of solute atoms with vacancy, dislocation and grain boundary.