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Quantitative Evaluation of Spinodal Decomposition in Fe-Cr by Atom Probe Tomography and Radial Distribution Function Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2013

Jing Zhou ,
Joakim Odqvist ,
Mattias Thuvander  and
Peter Hedström
Jing Zhou*
Affiliation:
Department of Material Science and Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-10044 Stockholm, Sweden
Joakim Odqvist
Affiliation:
Department of Material Science and Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-10044 Stockholm, Sweden AB Sandvik Materials Technology, R&D Centre, SE-811 81 Sandviken, Sweden
Mattias Thuvander
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Göteborg, Sweden
Peter Hedström
Affiliation:
Department of Material Science and Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-10044 Stockholm, Sweden
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: jingzhou@kth.se
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Abstract

Nanostructure evolution during low temperature aging of three binary Fe-Cr alloys has been investigated by atom probe tomography. A new method based on radial distribution function (RDF) analysis to quantify the composition wavelength and amplitude of spinodal decomposition is proposed. Wavelengths estimated from RDF have a power-law type evolution and are in reasonable agreement with wavelengths estimated using other more conventional methods. The main advantages of the proposed method are the following: (1) Selecting a box size to generate the frequency diagram, which is known to generate bias in the evaluation of amplitude, is avoided. (2) The determination of amplitude is systematic and utilizes the wavelength evaluated first to subsequently evaluate the amplitude. (3) The RDF is capable of representing very subtle decomposition, which is not possible using frequency diagrams, and thus a proposed theoretical treatment of the experimental RDF creates the possibility to determine amplitude at very early stages of spinodal decomposition.

Keywords

atom probe tomography (APT)spinodal decompositionradial distribution function (RDF)phase separationstainless steels
Type
Materials Applications
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , June 2013 , pp. 665 - 675
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2013 

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