Characterization of defect structures in nanocrystalline materials by X-ray line profile analysis

Abstract

Abstract. X-ray line profile analysis is a powerful alternative tool for determining dislocation densities, dislocation type, crystallite and subgrain size and size-distributions, and planar defects, especially the frequency of twin boundaries and stacking faults. The method is especially useful in the case of submicron grain size or nanocrystalline materials, where X-ray line broadening is a well pronounced effect, and the observation of defects with very large density is often not easy by transmission electron microscopy. The fundamentals of X-ray line broadening are summarized in terms of the different qualitative breadth methods, and the more sophisticated and more quantitative whole pattern fitting procedures. The efficiency and practical use of X-ray line profile analysis is shown by discussing its applications to metallic, ceramic, diamond-like and polymer nanomaterials.

Characterization of Defect Structure in Electrodeposited Nanocrystalline Ni Films

“…The grain size directly determined by TEM often differs from the crystallite size obtained by XRD line profile analysis [45,47,48]. The latter quantity always gives the size of domains which scatter X-rays coherently.…”

An investigation on the microstructure and defects in the mechanically milled Cu and Fe powders

“…The sample preparation is simple and the obtained characteristics are average of the entire sample. These can be empirical advantages over the powerful technique of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) (Tian and Atzmon, 1999;Gubicza and Ungar, 2007). Therefore, several XRD analysis methods have been developed to calculate the crystallite size, microstrain, or dislocation density in different lattice structures.…”

Microstructure, residual stress and hardness study of nanocrystalline titanium–zirconium nitride thin films

“…This technique has some advantages over others. For example, it permits high penetration depths in the sample, allows for high dislocation density values and is a non-destructive technique [13,14].…”