Laser-equipped gas reaction chamber for probing environmentally sensitive materials at near atomic scale
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Numerous metallurgical and materials science applications depend on quantitative atomic-scale characterizations of environmentally-sensitive materials and their transient states. Studying the effect upon materials subjected to thermochemical treatments in specific gaseous atmospheres is of central importance for specifically studying a material’s resistance to certain oxidative or hydrogen environments. It is also important for investigating catalytic materials, direct reduction of an oxide, particular surface science reactions or nanoparticle fabrication routes. This manuscript realizes such experimental protocols upon a thermochemical reaction chamber called the "Reacthub" and allows for transferring treated materials under cryogenic & ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) workflow conditions for characterisation by either atom probe or scanning Xe+/electron microscopies. Two examples are discussed in the present study. One protocol was in the deuterium gas charging (25 kPa D2 at 200°C) of a high-manganese twinning-induced-plasticity (TWIP) steel and characterization of the ingress and trapping of hydrogen at various features (grain boundaries in particular) in efforts to relate this to the steel’s hydrogen embrittlement susceptibility. Deuterium was successfully detected after gas charging but most contrast originated from the complex ion FeOD+ signal and the feature may be an artefact. The second example considered the direct deuterium reduction (5 kPa D2 at 700°C) of a single crystal wüstite (FeO) sample, demonstrating that under a standard thermochemical treatment causes rapid reduction upon the nanoscale. In each case, further studies are required for complete confidence about these phenomena, but these experiments successfully demonstrate that how an ex-situ thermochemical treatment can be realised that captures environmentally-sensitive transient states that can be analysed by atomic-scale by atom probe microscope.
Date Issued
2022-02-09
Date Acceptance
2021-12-28
Citation
PLoS One, 2022, 17 (2), pp.1-19
ISSN
1932-6203
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Start Page
1
End Page
19
Journal / Book Title
PLoS One
Volume
17
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2022 Khanchandani et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000821499100009&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
Subjects
HYDROGEN EMBRITTLEMENT
Multidisciplinary Sciences
NICKEL
PRECIPITATION
Science & Technology
Science & Technology - Other Topics
STEEL
SURFACE-REACTIONS
TOMOGRAPHY
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e0262543
Date Publish Online
2022-02-09