Liquid-Like, Self-Healing Aluminum Oxide during Deformation at Room Temperature
Abstract
Effective protection from environmental degradation relies on the integrity of oxide as diffusion barriers. Ideally, the passivation layer can repair its own breaches quickly under deformation. While studies suggest that the native aluminum oxide may manifest such properties, it has yet to be experimentally proven because direct observations of the air-environmental deformation of aluminum oxide and its initial formation at room temperature are challenging. In this letter, we report in situ experiments to stretch pure aluminum nanotips under O2 gas environments in a transmission electron microscope (TEM). We discovered that aluminum oxide indeed deforms like liquid and can match the deformation of Al without any cracks/spallation at moderate strain rate. At higher strain rate, we exposed fresh metal surface, and visualized the self-healing process of aluminum oxide at atomic resolution. Unlike traditional thin-film growth or nanoglass consolidation processes, we observe seamless coalescence of new oxide islands without forming any glass–glass interface or surface grooves, indicating greatly accelerated glass kinetics at the surface compared to the bulk.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[3];
[4];
[5]
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering; Univ. of Central Florida, Orlando, FL (United States). Advanced Materials Processing and Analysis Center (AMPAC) and Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
- Xi’an Jiaotong Univ. (China); Southeast Univ., Nanjing (China). Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano) and State Key Lab. for Mechanical Behavior of Materials
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States). Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN)
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States); Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Xi’an Jiaotong Univ. (China); Southeast Univ., Nanjing (China)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1430854
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-203374-2018-JAAM
Journal ID: ISSN 1530-6984
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0012704; DMR-1410636
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Nano Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 18; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 1530-6984
- Publisher:
- American Chemical Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; 77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY; 75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; aluminum oxide; glass surface; in situ TEM; self-healing; stress-corrosion cracking; Superplasticity
Citation Formats
Yang, Yang, Kushima, Akihiro, Han, Weizhong, Xin, Huolin, and Li, Ju. Liquid-Like, Self-Healing Aluminum Oxide during Deformation at Room Temperature. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00068.
Yang, Yang, Kushima, Akihiro, Han, Weizhong, Xin, Huolin, & Li, Ju. Liquid-Like, Self-Healing Aluminum Oxide during Deformation at Room Temperature. United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00068
Yang, Yang, Kushima, Akihiro, Han, Weizhong, Xin, Huolin, and Li, Ju. Wed .
"Liquid-Like, Self-Healing Aluminum Oxide during Deformation at Room Temperature". United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00068. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1430854.
@article{osti_1430854,
title = {Liquid-Like, Self-Healing Aluminum Oxide during Deformation at Room Temperature},
author = {Yang, Yang and Kushima, Akihiro and Han, Weizhong and Xin, Huolin and Li, Ju},
abstractNote = {Effective protection from environmental degradation relies on the integrity of oxide as diffusion barriers. Ideally, the passivation layer can repair its own breaches quickly under deformation. While studies suggest that the native aluminum oxide may manifest such properties, it has yet to be experimentally proven because direct observations of the air-environmental deformation of aluminum oxide and its initial formation at room temperature are challenging. In this letter, we report in situ experiments to stretch pure aluminum nanotips under O2 gas environments in a transmission electron microscope (TEM). We discovered that aluminum oxide indeed deforms like liquid and can match the deformation of Al without any cracks/spallation at moderate strain rate. At higher strain rate, we exposed fresh metal surface, and visualized the self-healing process of aluminum oxide at atomic resolution. Unlike traditional thin-film growth or nanoglass consolidation processes, we observe seamless coalescence of new oxide islands without forming any glass–glass interface or surface grooves, indicating greatly accelerated glass kinetics at the surface compared to the bulk.},
doi = {10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00068},
journal = {Nano Letters},
number = 4,
volume = 18,
place = {United States},
year = {2018},
month = {2}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Cited by: 8 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Web of Science
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Stress and grain growth in thin films
journal, May 1996
- Thompson, Carl V.; Carel, Roland
- Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, Vol. 44, Issue 5
Nanoglasses: a new kind of noncrystalline materials
journal, January 2013
- Gleiter, Herbert
- Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology, Vol. 4
Plasticity of protective oxide scales
journal, January 1990
- Schütze, M.
- Materials Science and Technology, Vol. 6, Issue 1
Limits to adherence of oxide scales
journal, January 1990
- Robertson, J.; Manning, M. I.
- Materials Science and Technology, Vol. 6, Issue 1
The Control of Oxidation-Induced Intergranular Embrittlement by Grain Boundary Engineering in Rapidly Solidified Ni-Fe Alloy Ribbons
journal, January 2003
- Yamaura, Shin-ichi; Tsurekawa, Sadahiro; Watanabe, Tadao
- MATERIALS TRANSACTIONS, Vol. 44, Issue 7
Direct observation of individual hydrogen atoms at trapping sites in a ferritic steel
journal, March 2017
- Chen, Y. -S.; Haley, D.; Gerstl, S. S. A.
- Science, Vol. 355, Issue 6330
Dynamic embrittlement in an age-hardenable copper-chromium alloy
journal, July 1996
- Misra, R. D. K.; Prasad, V. Satya; Rao, P. Rama
- Scripta Materialia, Vol. 35, Issue 1
Grain boundary embrittlement of the iron-base superalloy IN903A
journal, September 1981
- Bricknell, R. H.; Woodford, D. A.
- Metallurgical Transactions A, Vol. 12, Issue 9
The distribution of glass-transition temperatures in nanoscopically confined glass formers
journal, September 2003
- Ellison, Christopher J.; Torkelson, John M.
- Nature Materials, Vol. 2, Issue 10
Measuring the Surface Dynamics of Glassy Polymers
journal, February 2008
- Fakhraai, Z.; Forrest, J. A.
- Science, Vol. 319, Issue 5863
Glass Transition Dynamics and Surface Layer Mobility in Unentangled Polystyrene Films
journal, June 2010
- Yang, Z.; Fujii, Y.; Lee, F. K.
- Science, Vol. 328, Issue 5986
Oxidation-assisted ductility of aluminium nanowires
journal, June 2014
- Sen, Fatih G.; Alpas, Ahmet T.; van Duin, Adri C. T.
- Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Issue 1
The Mechanical Properties of Thin Anodic Films on Aluminum
journal, January 1966
- Bradhurst, D. H.; Llewelyn Leach, J. S.
- Journal of The Electrochemical Society, Vol. 113, Issue 12
The effect of thermal grooving on grain boundary motion
journal, June 1958
- Mullins, W. W.
- Acta Metallurgica, Vol. 6, Issue 6
Early stages in amorphous Zr 65 Al 7.5 Cu 27.5 film growth on HOPG
journal, November 1998
- Mayr, S. G.; Moske, M.; Samwer, K.
- Europhysics Letters (EPL), Vol. 44, Issue 4
Model for Intrinsic Stress Formation in Amorphous Thin Films
journal, July 2001
- Mayr, S. G.; Samwer, K.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 87, Issue 3
Modified atomic structure in a PdFeSi nanoglass
journal, December 1989
- Jing, J.; Krämer, A.; Birringer, R.
- Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, Vol. 113, Issue 2-3
Step-Edge-Induced Oxide Growth During the Oxidation of Cu Surfaces
journal, December 2012
- Zhou, Guangwen; Luo, Langli; Li, Liang
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 109, Issue 23
Surface-Step-Induced Oscillatory Oxide Growth
journal, September 2014
- Li, Liang; Luo, Langli; Ciston, Jim
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 113, Issue 13
Size-Dependent Brittle-to-Ductile Transition in Silica Glass Nanofibers
journal, December 2015
- Luo, Junhang; Wang, Jiangwei; Bitzek, Erik
- Nano Letters, Vol. 16, Issue 1
Liquid-like pseudoelasticity of sub-10-nm crystalline silver particles
journal, October 2014
- Sun, Jun; He, Longbing; Lo, Yu-Chieh
- Nature Materials, Vol. 13, Issue 11
Direction-specific van der Waals attraction between rutile TiO 2 nanocrystals
journal, April 2017
- Zhang, Xin; He, Yang; Sushko, Maria L.
- Science, Vol. 356, Issue 6336
Cold welding of ultrathin gold nanowires
journal, February 2010
- Lu, Yang; Huang, Jian Yu; Wang, Chao
- Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 5, Issue 3
Superelongation and Atomic Chain Formation in Nanosized Metallic Glass
journal, May 2010
- Luo, J. H.; Wu, F. F.; Huang, J. Y.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 21
Effect of oxygen gas pressure on the kinetics of alumina film growth during the oxidation of Al(111) at room temperature
journal, September 2011
- Cai, Na; Zhou, Guangwen; Müller, Kathrin
- Physical Review B, Vol. 84, Issue 12
Preparation and properties of clean surfaces of aluminum
journal, November 1967
- Jona, F.
- Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids, Vol. 28, Issue 11
Kinetic roughening of amorphous films investigated in situ with scanning tunneling microscopy
journal, October 1997
- Reinker, B.; Moske, M.; Samwer, K.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 56, Issue 15
The evolving quality of frictional contact with graphene
journal, November 2016
- Li, Suzhi; Li, Qunyang; Carpick, Robert W.
- Nature, Vol. 539, Issue 7630
Effect of native Al2O3 on the elastic response of nanoscale Al films
journal, June 2002
- Saif, M. T. A.; Zhang, S.; Haque, A.
- Acta Materialia, Vol. 50, Issue 11
Atomic Layer Deposition of Oxide Thin Films with Metal Alkoxides as Oxygen Sources
journal, April 2000
- Ritala, Mikko; Kukli, Kaupo; Raisanen, Petri
- Science, Vol. 288, Issue 5464, p. 319-321
Industrial Applications of Atomic Layer Deposition
journal, September 2009
- Ritala, Mikko; Niinistö, Jaakko
- ECS Transactions, Vol. 25, Issue 8
The mechanical properties of atomic layer deposited alumina for use in micro- and nano-electromechanical systems
journal, August 2006
- Tripp, Marie K.; Stampfer, Christoph; Miller, David C.
- Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, Vol. 130-131
Works referencing / citing this record:
Construction of Al-ZnO/CdS photoanodes modified with distinctive alumina passivation layer for improvement of photoelectrochemical efficiency and stability
journal, January 2018
- Wang, Ruyi; Li, Xiaodong; Wang, Lu
- Nanoscale, Vol. 10, Issue 41
Atomically Thin 2D Transition Metal Oxides: Structural Reconstruction, Interaction with Substrates, and Potential Applications
journal, October 2018
- Yang, Tong; Song, Ting Ting; Callsen, Martin
- Advanced Materials Interfaces, Vol. 6, Issue 1
Surface- and Strain-Mediated Reversible Phase Transformation in Quantum-Confined ZnO Nanowires
journal, November 2019
- Zhao, Peili; Guan, Xiaoxi; Zheng, He
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 123, Issue 21
Highly ductile amorphous oxide at room temperature and high strain rate
conference, March 2021
- Frankberg, Erkka
- Proceedings of the European Microscopy Congress 2020
Rapid On-Chip Healing of Metal Thin Films
journal, November 2018
- Danzi, Stefano; Schnabel, Volker; Gabl, Johannes
- Advanced Materials Technologies, Vol. 4, Issue 3
Greatly enhanced anticorrosion of Al–AlN x O y nanocermet films with self-passivated Al nanoparticles for enduring solar-thermal energy harvesting
journal, January 2019
- Wang, Chengbing; Li, Zhengtong; Wang, Weike
- Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 7, Issue 21
Highly ductile amorphous oxide at room temperature and high strain rate
journal, November 2019
- Frankberg, Erkka J.; Kalikka, Janne; García Ferré, Francisco
- Science, Vol. 366, Issue 6467
Enhanced performance of GaInP/GaAs/Ge solar cells under high concentration through Pd/Ge/Ti/Pd/Al grid metallization
journal, June 2019
- Huo, Pengyun; Lombardero, Iván; García, Iván
- Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, Vol. 27, Issue 9
The Aluminum-Ion Battery: A Sustainable and Seminal Concept?
journal, May 2019
- Leisegang, Tilmann; Meutzner, Falk; Zschornak, Matthias
- Frontiers in Chemistry, Vol. 7