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Structure and Properties of Grain Boundaries in Crystalline Materials

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A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Advanced Materials Characterization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2020) | Viewed by 5928

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Sung Bo Lee

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Guest Editor

Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Research Institute of Advanced Materials, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
Interests: electron-beam irradiation at the transmission electron microscope; beam damage in metals; electron-beam sintering; surface structure; surface reconstruction; grain boundary structure; grain boundary migration; grain boundary structural transition; thermal roughening transition; kinetic roughening; strain-induced roughening; grain growth; grain boundary mechanics; in situ high-resolution transmission electron microscopy
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Most properties of crystalline materials in high-technology applications are affected by the presence of grain boundaries. Grain boundaries determine many important properties (e.g., electrical, mechanical, nuclear and corrosion resistance) of crystalline materials.

As in the case of crystalline interfaces and surfaces, grain boundaries undergo structural transitions, such as faceting–defaceting and thermal roughening transitions with increasing temperature. The transitions may influence mechanisms behind the migration of single grain boundaries and thus grain growth in polycrystalline materials. As the driving force for migration increases, grain boundaries also undergo roughening (i.e., kinetic roughening). However, the correlation between such grain boundary structural transitions and grain boundary migration/grain growth has not been extensively elucidated yet.

Techniques to control and improve material properties frequently involve thermally activated grain boundary migration and thus a detailed characterization of grain boundary mugration and its correlation with the grain boundary structural transitions is crucial for thermomechanical processing to produce desirable materials properties, stimulating further study dedicated to the general understanding of the correlation between grain boundary structural transitions and migration.

Furthermore, especially, the grain boundary structure and kinetics in nanocrystalline materials are key factors in determining their exceptional electrical, thermal, chemical and mechanical properties. This is largely attributed to the fact that interface and grain-boundary regions occupy dominating portions of the total volume of these materials, but we do not fully understand why. It is well accepted that grain boundaries in nanocrystalline materials have higher grain-boundary diffusivities and mobilities than in coarser-grained counterparts. However, mechanisms behind the observations have not been elucidated yet. Certainly, understanding of the grain-boundary structure and kinetics will lead to the development of novel nanocrystalline materials with outstanding intrinsic properties.

The aforementioned situations motivate a special issue dedicated to the general understanding of the grain boundary structure and kinetics, and structure-property relationships in crystalline materials.

In this special issue, we invite original research articles and review papers on the following topics.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Grain boundary structure in crystalline materials (bicrystals, polycrystals, and nanocrystals)
Grain boundary structural transitions
Grain boundary properties (electrical, nuclear, mechanical, corrosion properties)
Grain boundary kinetics
Grain growth
Grain boundary migration
Microscopic characterization of grain boundary structure and migration by various methods, such as electron microscopy (TEM and SEM), field ion microscopy (FIM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM)
Spectroscopic characterization by various methods, such as electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS)

Prof. Dr. Sung Bo Lee

Guest Editor

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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Keywords

grain boundary structure

grain boundary structural transition

grain boundary kinetics

grain growth

grain boundary properties

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

8 pages, 3359 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evidence of Stress Development as a Source of Driving Force for Grain-Boundary Migration in a Ni Bicrystalline TEM Specimen

by Sung Bo Lee, Jinwook Jung and Heung Nam Han

Materials 2020, 13(2), 360; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13020360 - 12 Jan 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2138

Abstract

In a previous study, using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), we examined grain-boundary migration behavior in a Ni bicrystal. A specimen for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was prepared using focused ion beam. The Ni lamella in the specimen was composed of two grains with surface normal directions of [1 0 0] and [1 1 0]. As the lamella was heated to 600 °C in a TEM, it was subjected to compressive stresses. The stress state of the Ni lamella approximated to the isostress condition, which was confirmed by a finite element method. However, the stress development was not experimentally confirmed in the previous study. In the present study, we present an observation of stacking faults with a length of 40–70 nm at the grain boundary as direct evidence of the stress development. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structure and Properties of Grain Boundaries in Crystalline Materials)

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15 pages, 4210 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Quantum–Mechanical Study of Clean and Cr–Segregated Antiphase Boundaries in Fe₃Al

by Martin Friák, Monika Všianská and Mojmír Šob

Materials 2019, 12(23), 3954; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma12233954 - 28 Nov 2019

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2734

Abstract

We present a quantum-mechanical study of thermodynamic, structural, elastic, and magnetic properties of selected antiphase boundaries (APBs) in Fe

_{3}

Al with the D0

_{3}

crystal structure with and without Cr atoms. The computed APBs are sharp (not thermal), and they have {001} [...] Read more.

We present a quantum-mechanical study of thermodynamic, structural, elastic, and magnetic properties of selected antiphase boundaries (APBs) in Fe

_{3}

Al with the D0

_{3}

crystal structure with and without Cr atoms. The computed APBs are sharp (not thermal), and they have {001} crystallographic orientation. They are characterized by a mutual shift of grains by 1/2⟨100⟩a where a is the lattice parameter of a cube-shaped 16-atom elementary cell of Fe

_{3}

Al, i.e., they affect the next nearest neighbors (APB-NNN type, also called APB-D0

_{3}

). Regarding clean APBs in Fe

_{3}

Al, the studied ones have only a very minor impact on the structural and magnetic properties, including local magnetic moments, and the APB energy is rather low, about 80 ± 25 mJ/m

^{2}

. Interestingly, they have a rather strong impact on the anisotropic (tensorial) elastic properties with the APB-induced change from a cubic symmetry to a tetragonal one, which is sensitively reflected by the directional dependence of linear compressibility. The Cr atoms have a strong impact on magnetic properties and a complex influence on the energetics of APBs. In particular, the Cr atoms in Fe

_{3}

Al exhibit clustering tendencies even in the presence of APBs and cause a transition from a ferromagnetic (Cr-free Fe

_{3}

Al) into a ferrimagnetic state. The Fe atoms with Cr atoms in their first coordination shell have their local atomic magnetic moments reduced. This reduction is synergically enhanced (to the point when Fe atoms are turned non-magnetic) when the influence of clustering of Cr atoms is combined with APBs, which offer specific atomic environments not existing in the APB-free bulk Fe

_{3}

Al. The impact of Cr atoms on APB energies in Fe

_{3}

Al is found to be ambiguous, including reduction, having a negligible influence or increasing APB energies depending on the local atomic configuration of Cr atoms, as well as their concentration. Full article