Clustered field evaporation of metallic glasses in atom probe tomography

J Zemp; S S A Gerstl; J F Löffler; B Schönfeld

doi:10.1016/j.ultramic.2015.11.014

Clustered field evaporation of metallic glasses in atom probe tomography

Ultramicroscopy. 2016 Mar:162:35-41. doi: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2015.11.014. Epub 2015 Dec 1.

Authors

J Zemp¹, S S A Gerstl², J F Löffler¹, B Schönfeld³

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology, Department of Materials, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
² Scientific Center for Optical and Electron Microscopy, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
³ Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology, Department of Materials, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland. Electronic address: bernd.schoenfeld@mat.ethz.ch.

PMID: 26724469
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2015.11.014

Abstract

Field evaporation of metallic glasses is a stochastic process combined with spatially and temporally correlated events, which are referred to as clustered evaporation (CE). This phenomenon is investigated by studying the distance between consecutive detector hits. CE is found to be a strongly localized phenomenon (up to 3nm in range) which also depends on the type of evaporating ions. While a similar effect in crystals is attributed to the evaporation of crystalline layers, CE of metallic glasses presumably has a different - as yet unknown - physical origin. The present work provides new perspectives on quantification methods for atom probe tomography of metallic glasses.

Keywords: Atom probe tomography; Clustered evaporation; Correlated evaporation; Metallic glasses.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't