High-resolution electron microscopy studies of antiphase boundaries in Cu3Au

We report the results of a crystallographic analysis of antiphase boundaries (APB) in Cu₃Au obtained by using high-resolution electron microscopy. Our observations corroborate the conclusions of previous work, based on conventional electron microscopy, which indicate that antiphase boundaries are mainly located in the cube planes. We found that the deviation of the average APB orientation from the cube planes is related to the formation of kinks on an atomic scale. Moreover, the identification of the boundary plane shows that the APBs are mostly conservative. These results are discussed and interpreted in the framework of a pairwise potential approach with predominant nearest neighbor interactions.