Fig. 1 XRD spectra of as-deposited Ni-W films with different W contents

Fig. 2 Representative planar TEM images of as-deposited Ni-W films with different W contents: a 0 at.% W, b 3.21 at.% W, c 4.73 at.% W, d 6.30 at.% W

Fig. 3 Statistical results of a d and b λ for as-deposited Ni-W films with different W contents

Fig. 4 Representative planar TEM images of annealed NT Ni-W films with different W contents: a-c 400 °C, d-f 600 °C, g-i 800 °C; a, d, g 3.21 at.% W, b, e, h 4.73 at.% W, c, f, i 6.30 at.% W

Fig. 5 d a, λ b as a function of annealing temperature in NT Ni-W alloyed films

Fig. 6 a XRD pattern of Ni-6.30 at.% W alloy annealed at 600 °C, showing that the peaks of Ni4W emerge; b the size of Ni4W particles as a function of W contents at different annealing temperatures

Fig. 7 a Typical engineering stress-strain curves of two different NT Ni-W alloyed films with different strain rates; b σy as a function of d or λ, showing the Hall-Petch relationship [19,24,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49]; σy c, UTS d as a function of W content, respectively, showing both σy and UST increase with increasing W content

Fig. 8 SRS m a and activation volume V* b as a function of W contents

Fig. 9 a Schematic illustration of dislocation-GBs/TBs interactions, which lead to twinning-mediated grain growth after annealing; b, c interaction of twins with dislocations in Ni-W films, c the magnified view of the red rectangular box in b

Fig. 10 Influence of twinning on the grain growth temperature [24,66,67,68,69]

Fig. 11 A comparison of the experimental NT Ni-W alloyed films with the reported σy of Ni-W alloys with different W contents in literature [19,24,32,39,45,46,47,48,49,68,80,81]

Fig. 12 Contribution of different strengthening mechanisms to σy