Accurate measurement of grain boundary misorientation by Large Angle Convergent Beam Electron Diffraction

A new method using Large Angle Convergent Beam Electron Diffraction (LACBED) patterns is proposed to measure accurately the grain boundary misorientation. The LACBED patterns which are obtained with a defocused convergent electron beam having a convergence semi-angle in the range 1 to 5^o contain very sharp deficiency lines. Due to the good quality of the LACBED patterns, these sharp deficiency lines can be used to measure with great accuracy the grain boundary misorientation. In addition, since the LACBED method is a defocus mode method, the patterns contain at the same time information on the reciprocal space (the deficiency lines typical of the crystal orientation of the two grains on each side of the grain boundary) and on the real space (the image of the grain boundary). We describe a method which allows the identification of the misorientation from these LACBED patterns. The main point to consider is the accuracy which is about 0.05^o. It is much better than the one obtained from other conventional methods used to measure this misorientation.     

Grain boundary influence on the mechanical behaviour of oriented bicrystals

It is shown through several experiments centred on dislocation transmission through a GB that relating macroscopic mechanical properties of a bicrystalline specimen to the atomic structure of the GB or to local dislocation reactions is not straightforward. Not only the long and short range stresses and the plastic properties of the two grains must be taken into consideration, but also the kinetics of events has to be taken into account to explain the final result.     

Complete general solution of Stokes equations for plane boundaries

The completeness of a representation for a solution of Stokes equations is proved which is suitable for solving problems which involve plane boundaries. We discuss two theorems for Stokes flow past a plane boundary with different boundary conditions and illustrate them with examples.     

Natural boundaries for area-preserving twist maps

We consider KAM invariant curves for generalizations of the standard map of the form (x, y)=(x+y, y+f(x)), wheref(x) is an odd trigonometric polynomial. We study numerically their analytic properties by a Padé approximant method applied to the function which conjugates the dynamics to a rotation +. In the complex plane, natural boundaries of different shapes are found. In the complex plane the analyticity region appears to be a strip bounded by a natural boundary, whose width tends linearly to 0 as tends to the critical value.     

Wetting transition on grain boundaries in Al contacting with a Sn-rich melt

The contact angle at the intersection of a grain boundary in Al bicrystals with the solid Al/liquid Al–Sn interphase boundary has been measured for two symmetric tilt <011> {001} grain boundaries with tilt angles of 32° and 38.5°. The temperature dependencies (T) present the evidence of the grain boundary wetting phase transition at T_w. The observed hysteresis is consistent with the assumption that the wetting transition is of first order. The determined discontinuity in the temperature derivative of the grain boundary energy is–5.6 J/m²K (T w1=617°C) for the boundary with a low energy (=38.5°) and –17 J/m²K (T w2=604°C) for the grain boundary with a high energy (=32°).     

Polycrystalline silicon S-diode fabricated using phosphorus thermal diffusion along grain boundaries

Electrical activity of grain boundaries (GB) in polycrystalline silicon films can stand duty as an additional factor of action on its properties. At present paper it has been studied polycrystalline silicon epitaxial films grown by CVD-method at low-resistivity n ⁺-type poly-Si substrates. A p ⁺-n junction of 0,5 m deep was formed by ion implantation of boron. The effect of thermal annealing (TA) on I-V characteristics of the p ⁺-n-n ⁺ structures was studied. It was founded that the region with negative resistivity is appeared in I-V characteristic after TA in vacuum at 800°C for 1 hour. Investigations by means of C-V and temperature characteristics of samples show that the S-image of the I-V characteristics is caused by phosphorus diffusion along GB that give rise to conduction of the charge carriers along GB. For the first time it was shown the opportunity of the creation of low-cost poly-Si S-diode by TA.     

Application of the quartz crystal microbalance for the investigation of nanotribological processes

The electrochemical preparation of copper layers was investigated using a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) with damping monitoring. The damping increase during the deposition could be separated into two contributions arising from an internal and an external friction process. External friction comes from the coupling of the shear motion of the rough metal surface to the viscous liquid. Internal friction occurred only in the coarse grained layers and can be explained by phonon excitations at the grain boundaries.Presented at the 3rd International Symposium on Electrochemical Processing of Tailored Materials held at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry, 15–20 September 2002, Düsseldorf, Germany     

The study of grain orientation distributions and grain boundary misorientation distributions in 304 and 316L stainless steels

Orientation distribution functions in two recrystallized austenitic stainless steels (AISI types 304 and 316L) with known grain boundary misorientation distributions have been studied. Previously obtained data on grain boundary spectra in these steels have been re-examined and analyzed from the point of view of texture analysis.The results obtained have shown that there is no unambiguous relatonship between grain boundary misorientation distribution and grain orientation distribution (ODF) determined by the X-ray analysis in the materials under study. This ambiguity is due to the following reason. In the grain boundary misorientation statistics only nearest-neighbor grains are taken into account, but in the orientation distribution function orientations are averaged over the entire volume of the specimen independent as to whether the grains are adjacent or not. Two main results were established for the steels under study: (i) Textures of the two steels differ, though their grain boundary misorientation distributions are similar; and (ii) misorientations of the majority of grain boundaries can be described as rotations about the axes close to 110.     

Time‐resolved free carrier lifetime microscopy in bulk GaN

A novel setup for lifetime microscopy measurements was designed and applied for carrier lifetime mapping in a bulk GaN. Photoexcitation by a picosecond UV pump and detection of time‐resolved free carrier absorption (FCA) images on a CCD camera enabled the mapping of carrier lifetime distribution with a spatial resolution of 5 μm. The spatial variation of lifetime in the bulk HVPE‐grown GaN revealed the presence of different‐size crystalline grains, with lifetime peaking up to 70 ns in the centers of the largest grains (～20 μm in diameter) and dropping to 10 ns in the small ones, while the spatially averaged lifetime was 40 ns. The inhomogeneity was ascribed to the interplay of nonradiative diffusion‐limited recombination at grain boundaries and a bulk lifetime in the crystallite centers. The numerical solution of spatially‐resolved carrier decay rate in the crystallite centers at high injection levels and comparison with experimental data provided a bulk nonradiative recombination time of ～70 ns. (© 2013 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Applicability of Time Integrated Spectroscopy Based on the Microscopic Beer-Lambert Law to Finite Turbid Media with Curved Boundaries

Finite curved boundaries are unavoidable in the practical field of non-invasive tissue spectroscopy. This being the case, a technique derived from the microscopic Beer-Lambert law (MBL) can be applied regardless of what geometry is assumed. Here, experimental tests on a type of time integrated spectroscopy based on the MBL for a tissue-like phantom with curved boundaries are presented. The experiments employed a cylindrical liquid phantom 56 mm in diameter, which resembles a human forearm. Two independent measurements were made on the surface of the phantom at various absorption levels (the absorption coefficients of the phantom were from 2.45 × 10⁻³ to 4.12 × 10⁻² mm⁻¹ at 782 nm), one in the direction along the circumference and the other along the long axis of symmetry. In both cases, the absorber concentrations were successfully recovered within error values of a few percent using a single equation.