ABSTRACT
Polychromatic X-ray microdiffraction is an emerging tool for studying mesoscale structure and dynamics. Crystalline phase, orientation (texture), elastic and plastic strain can be nondestructively mapped in three dimensions with good spatial and angular resolution. Local crystallographic orientation can be determined to approximately 0.01 degree and elastic strain tensor elements can be measured with a resolution of approximately 10(-4) or better. Complete strain tensor information can be obtained by augmenting polychromatic microdiffraction with a monochromatic measurement of one Laue-reflection energy. With differential-aperture depth profiling, volumes tens to hundreds of micrometers below the surface are accessible so that three-dimensional distributions of crystalline morphology including grain boundaries, triple points, second phases and inclusions can all be mapped. Volume elements below 0.25 microm3 are routinely resolved so that the grain boundary structure of most materials can be characterized. Here the theory, instrumentation and application of polychromatic microdiffraction are described.
ABSTRACT
A recently developed differential-aperture X-ray microscopy (DAXM) technique provides local structure and crystallographic orientation with submicron spatial resolution in three-dimensions; it further provides angular precision of approximately 0.01 degrees and local elastic strain with an accuracy of approximately 1.0 x 10(-4) using microbeams from high brilliance third generation synchrotron X-ray sources. DAXM is a powerful tool for inter- and intra-granular studies of lattice distortions and lattice rotations on mesoscopic length scales of tenths of microns to hundreds of microns that are largely above the range of traditional electron microscopy probes. Nondestructive, point-to-point, spatially resolved measurements of local lattice orientations in bulk materials provide direct information on geometrically necessary dislocation density distributions through measurements of the lattice curvature in plastically deformed materials. This paper reviews the DAXM measurement technique and discusses recent demonstrations of DAXM capabilities for measurements of microtexture, local elastic strain, and plastic deformation microstructure.
ABSTRACT
Advanced materials and processing techniques are based largely on the generation and control of non-homogeneous microstructures, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. X-ray tomography can provide three-dimensional density and chemical distributions of such structures with submicrometre resolution; structural methods exist that give submicrometre resolution in two dimensions; and techniques are available for obtaining grain-centroid positions and grain-average strains in three dimensions. But non-destructive point-to-point three-dimensional structural probes have not hitherto been available for investigations at the critical mesoscopic length scales (tenths to hundreds of micrometres). As a result, investigations of three-dimensional mesoscale phenomena--such as grain growth, deformation, crumpling and strain-gradient effects--rely increasingly on computation and modelling without direct experimental input. Here we describe a three-dimensional X-ray microscopy technique that uses polychromatic synchrotron X-ray microbeams to probe local crystal structure, orientation and strain tensors with submicrometre spatial resolution. We demonstrate the utility of this approach with micrometre-resolution three-dimensional measurements of grain orientations and sizes in polycrystalline aluminium, and with micrometre depth-resolved measurements of elastic strain tensors in cylindrically bent silicon. This technique is applicable to single-crystal, polycrystalline, composite and functionally graded materials.
