fig3

Figure 3. Distributions of vacancies, dislocations, stacking faults, and twin boundaries at both the beginning and final stages of sintering simulations for equal-sized NPs of (A) 5 nm Ag NPs, (B) 5 nm Cu NPs, (C) 15 nm Ag NPs, and (D) 15 nm Cu NPs. Two studied sintering temperatures are 50%T_m and 70%T_m. Black arrows mark dislocations, stacking faults, and twin boundaries, while light blue arrows point to vacancies. See Supplementary Materials for animations of selected key events. NPs: Nanoparticles; T_m: bulk melting points.