Assessing Experimental Parameter Space for Achieving Quantitative Electron Tomography for Nanometer-Scale Plastic Deformation

• Published in: Metallurgical and materials transactions. A, Physical metallurgy and materials science Vol. 51; no. 1; pp. 20 - 27
• Main Authors: Yu, Ya-Peng, Furukawa, Hiromitsu, Horii, Noritaka, Murayama, Mitsuhiro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.01.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: 3D Materials Science; Algorithms; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Deformation effects; Deformation mechanisms; Materials Science; Metallic Materials; Morphology; Nanotechnology; Organic chemistry; Parameters; Plastic deformation; Spatial resolution; Structural analysis; Structural Materials; Surfaces and Interfaces; Thin Films; Tomography; Topical Collection: 3D Materials Science
• ISSN: 1073-5623; 1543-1940
• DOI: 10.1007/s11661-019-05345-3

Integrating in situ deformation and electron tomography (ET) techniques allows us to visualize the materials’ response to an applied stress with nanometer spatial resolution. The capability of structural, chemical, and morphological characterization in three-dimension real time and at sub-microscopic levels alleviates several persistent problems of two-dimensional imaging such as the projection effect and postmortem appearance. On the other hand, implementing deformation mechanism introduces additional experimental constraints that could influence the accuracy of the reconstructed volumes in a different way. To materialize quantitative and statistically relevant microstructure interpretation by time-resolved ET, we evaluated several key parameters such as angular tilt range, tilt increment, and reconstruction algorithms to characterize their influences on the accuracy of size and morphology reproducibility.