A NiTi intermetallic compound was cold rolled at room temperature by 30% and 60% thickness reductions, and microstructures were studied by means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM). In the cold-rolled samples we observed both a phase of nanometer-sized crystals and an amorphous phase. A substantially high dislocation density, 1013 to 1014/cm2, was evident in the transition region between crystalline and amorphous phases. A simple estimate of the elastic energy arising from this dislocation density is of the same order as the crystallization energy, suggesting that dislocation accumulation is a major driving force for amorphization in cold-rolled NiTi.
The deposition of thin alternating layers of Cu and Nb on Si(100) substrates has been studied by transmission electron microscopy as a function of layer thickness. For layer thickness above 25 Å, there is a strong texture orientation relationship with the close packed planes of fcc Cu parallel to close packed planes of bcc Nb, forming the so-called “Kurdjumov-Sachs” orientation relationship. However, at thicknesses of under 12 Å, the Cu is constrained to grow as a slightly distorted bcc structure. It is thought that, when it reaches a critical thickness between 12 and 20 Å, the bcc Cu loses coherency and transforms martensitically to the fcc phase, resulting in the observed Kurdjumov–Sachs orientation relationship. Electron energy loss spectroscopy observations indicate a difference of 2 eV in the L3 edge suggesting that the Fermi energy is lower in the constrained bcc form of Cu than in the equilibrium fcc structure.
Physical-vapor-deposited thin metal films often exhibit tensile residual stresses. We studied the stress evolution in thin Cr films and found that increasing bombardment with energetic particles (atoms or ions) at low energies leads to an increase of tensile stress to a maximum followed by a rapid decrease. Microstructural characterization by transmission electron microscopy revealed that two different microstructures are observed for the same level of tensile stress: films processed at low bombardment had columnar porosity while no porosity was observed in films processed at higher bombardment. The observed stress evolution is interpreted by considering how the mean interatomic distance (and hence the force) in the intercolumnar regions is modified by energetic particle bombardment.
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