Three-dimensional investigation of particle-stimulated nucleation in a nickel alloy

By combining a focused ion beam (FIB) microscope with a field emission gun scanning electron microscope, it is possible to sequentially mill away ∼50 nm sections of a material by FIB and characterize, at high resolution, the crystallographic features of each new surface by electron backscatter diffr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Acta materialia 2007-09, Vol.55 (15), p.5157-5167
Main Authors: Xu, W., Ferry, M., Cairney, J.M., Humphreys, F.J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Crystallography
Deformation structure
EBSD
Electron back scatter diffraction
Exact sciences and technology
Interfaces
Metals. Metallurgy
Nickel
Nickel base alloys
Nucleation
Recrystallization
Scanning electron microscopy
Three dimensional
Tomography
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Summary:By combining a focused ion beam (FIB) microscope with a field emission gun scanning electron microscope, it is possible to sequentially mill away ∼50 nm sections of a material by FIB and characterize, at high resolution, the crystallographic features of each new surface by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). The successive EBSD maps are subsequently combined to generate three-dimensional crystallographic maps of the microstructure. FIB-EBSD tomography was used to investigate the deformation and recrystallization behaviour of a nickel alloy containing coarse silica particles. The technique demonstrated unambiguously the influence of particle diameter on the misorientations generated within particle deformation zones and showed that particle-stimulated nucleation (PSN) of recrystallization occurred at particles greater than ∼1 μm. PSN also often generated groups of contiguous grains separated by both coherent and incoherent twin boundaries. It was found that much of the behaviour observed using FIB-EBSD tomography is not clearly evident in two-dimensional EBSD micrographs.
ISSN:1359-6454
1873-2453
DOI:10.1016/j.actamat.2007.05.045