Limitations of Thermal Stability Analysis via In-Situ TEM/Heating Experiments

Osman El-Atwani; Hyosim Kim; Cayla Harvey; Mert Efe; Stuart A Maloy

doi:10.3390/nano11102541

Limitations of Thermal Stability Analysis via In-Situ TEM/Heating Experiments

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2021 Sep 28;11(10):2541. doi: 10.3390/nano11102541.

Authors

Osman El-Atwani¹, Hyosim Kim¹, Cayla Harvey^{1

2}, Mert Efe³, Stuart A Maloy¹

Affiliations

¹ Materials Science and Technology, Los Alamos National Lab, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA.
² Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557, USA.
³ Energy and Environment Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99354, USA.

Abstract

This work highlights some limitations of thermal stability analysis via in-situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM)-annealing experiments on ultrafine and nanocrystalline materials. We provide two examples, one on nanocrystalline pure copper and one on nanocrystalline HT-9 steel, where in-situ TEM-annealing experiments are compared to bulk material annealing experiments. The in-situ TEM and bulk annealing experiments demonstrated different results on pure copper but similar output in the HT-9 steel. The work entails discussion of the results based on literature theoretical concepts, and expound on the inevitability of comparing in-situ TEM annealing experimental results to bulk annealing when used for material thermal stability assessment.

Keywords: in-situ TEM; nanocrystalline; stagnation; thermal stability; ultrafine.