The initial stage of sintering for the W-Cu nanocomposite powder prepared from W-CuO mixture

W-15 wt.% Cu nanocomposite powder was fabricated using W and CuO powder with the ball-milling and hydrogen-reduction process. The ball-milled W-CuO mixture was very fine and homogeneously distributed in the aggregates. During the hydrogen-reduction process of the ball-milled W-CuO mixture, the fine and homogeneous microstructure was maintained without microstructural change. In the sintering process of the W-Cu nanocomposite powder, the solid state sintering was certainly observed around 850 °C. It is considered that the solid state sintering at low temperature range should occur as a result of the sintering of Cu phase.