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Title: Atomic structure and properties of grain boundaries in ceramics through Z-contrast electron microscopy

Conference ·
OSTI ID:398552
;  [1];  [2]
  1. Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
  2. Illinois Univ., Chicago, IL (United States). Dept. of Physics

The bulk properties of a large range of materials are controlled by the atomic structure and chemistry of grain boundaries, but how this occurs, at the fundamental atomic level, remains poorly understood. This is due largely to the many degrees of freedom associated with grain boundaries - five geometrical degrees of freedom along with a myriad of possibilities involving impurity segregation. Based on Z- contrast electron microscopy, a method have been developed for determining grain boundary atomic structure and chemistry directly from experimental data. The method utilizes the incoherent nature of the Z-contrast image; as there is no phase problem associated with an incoherent image, it represents a compositionally sensitive structure image which may be directly inverted to give atomic column positions. This method extracts the column locations to an accuracy of {+-}0.2 {Angstrom}, while preserving the intensity information. The procedure has been applied to SrTiO{sub 3} and YBCO.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-96OR22464
OSTI ID:
398552
Report Number(s):
CONF-9609246-1; ON: DE96014683
Resource Relation:
Conference: International Materials Research Congress and annual meeting of the Mexican Association of Microscopy, Cancun (Mexico), 1-5 Sep 1996; Other Information: PBD: Aug 1996
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English