X-ray Diffraction Computed Nanotomography Applied to Solve the Structure of Hierarchically Phase-Separated Metallic Glass

Abstract

The structure of matter at the nanoscale, in particular that of amorphous metallic alloys, is of vital importance for functionalization. With the availability of synchrotron radiation, it is now possible to visualize the internal features of metallic samples without physically destroying them. Methods based on computed tomography have recently been employed to explore the local features. Tomographic reconstruction, while it is relatively uncomplicated for crystalline materials, may generate undesired artifacts when applied to featureless amorphous or nanostructured metallic alloys. In this study we show that X-ray diffraction computed nanotomography can provide accurate details of the internal structure of a metallic glass. We demonstrate the power of the method by applying it to a hierarchically phase-separated amorphous sample with a small volume fraction of crystalline inclusions, focusing the X-ray beam to 500 nm and ensuring a submicrometer 2D resolution via the number of scans.

A step towards 6D WAXD tensor tomography

“…The combination of X-ray scattering/diffraction techniques with computed tomography (CT) has a distinct advantage in simultaneously imaging a 3D structure and its functional properties (phase, shape, orientation and strain of the crystalline components), thus it has found broad applications in the study of lithium batteries (Jensen et al, 2015;Finegan et al, 2019), fibre-reinforced composites (Auenhammer et al, 2024), catalysts (Sheppard et al, 2017), metallic alloys (Stoica et al, 2021) and biomaterials (Jensen et al, 2011;Leemreize et al, 2013). For powder or highly isotropic materials, the integration of a tomographic technique is rather straightforward as the signal is considered naturally rotational invariant (Feldkamp et al, 2009;Schroer et al, 2006).…”

Improved Thermal Stability and Oxygen‐Barrier Performance of SiO2 Thin Films by Modifying Amorphous Network Structure

“…Moreover, the integration or transformation of diffraction ring is a fundamental method to uncover the atomic-scale local structures in amorphous materials. [38][39][40] In view of this, PDSAD tools v3.0 is utilized to perform the integration treatment on the amorphous diffraction rings. [41] The characteristic diffraction peak position of the SiO 2 , SiZrO (4 at%), and SiZrO (11 at%) sample is, respectively, located at 2.66, 2.82, and 3.05 nm À1 (Figure 2e), which indicates the distinct shift of the diffraction peak toward high-k values with increasing the Zr content.…”

Using Powder Diffraction Patterns to Calibrate the Module Geometry of a Pixel Detector

“…The instrument is used for single-crystal, powder diffraction and PDF measurements, and these are frequently extended to XRD-CT mapping methods with beam sizes down to 100 nm [4][5][6] to obtain 3D images of microstructures during in situ experiments. This very high spatial resolution combined with a non-destructive measurement offers unique insights into structural variation not only within crystalline but also amorphous materials [7].…”