Lorentz electron microscopy of magnetic domains in rapidly solidified and annealed Pt-Co-B alloys

Author(s):  
N. Qiu ◽  
J. E. Wittig

PtCo hard magnets have specialized applications owing to their relatively high coercivity combined with corrosion resistance and ductility. Increased intrinsic coercivity has been recently obtained by rapid solidification processing of PtCo alloys containing boron. After rapid solidification by double anvil splat quenching and subsequent annealing for 30 minutes at 650°C, an alloy with composition Pt42Co45B13 (at.%) exhibited intrinsic coercivity up to 14kOe. This represents a significant improvement compared to the average coercivities in conventional binary PtCo alloys of 5 to 8 kOe.Rapidly solidified specimens of Pt42Co45B13 (at.%) were annealed at 650°C and 800°C for 30 minutes. The magnetic behavior was characterized by measuring the coercive force (Hc). Samples for TEM analysis were mechanically thinned to 100 μm, dimpled to about 30 nm, and ion milled to electron transparency in a Gatan Duomill at 5 kV and 1 mA gun current. The incident ion beam angle was set at 15° and the samples were liquid nitrogen cooled during milling. These samples were analyzed with a Philips CM20T TEM/STEM operated at 200 kV.

Author(s):  
J. E. O’Neal ◽  
K. K. Sankaran ◽  
S. M. L. Sastry

Rapid solidification of a molten, multicomponent alloy against a metallic substrate promotes greater microstructural homogeneity and greater solid solubility of alloying elements than can be achieved by slower-cooling casting methods. The supersaturated solid solutions produced by rapid solidification can be subsequently annealed to precipitate, by controlled phase decomposition, uniform 10-100 nm precipitates or dispersoids. TEM studies were made of the precipitation of metastable Al3Li(δ’) and equilibrium AL3H phases and the deformation characteristics of a rapidly solidified Al-3Li-0.2Ti alloy.


Author(s):  
Ching Shan Sung ◽  
Hsiu Ting Lee ◽  
Jian Shing Luo

Abstract Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) plays an important role in the structural analysis and characterization of materials for process evaluation and failure analysis in the integrated circuit (IC) industry as device shrinkage continues. It is well known that a high quality TEM sample is one of the keys which enables to facilitate successful TEM analysis. This paper demonstrates a few examples to show the tricks on positioning, protection deposition, sample dicing, and focused ion beam milling of the TEM sample preparation for advanced DRAMs. The micro-structures of the devices and samples architectures were observed by using cross sectional transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and optical microscopy. Following these tricks can help readers to prepare TEM samples with higher quality and efficiency.


Author(s):  
Max L. Lifson ◽  
Carla M. Chapman ◽  
D. Philip Pokrinchak ◽  
Phyllis J. Campbell ◽  
Greg S. Chrisman ◽  
...  

Abstract Plan view TEM imaging is a powerful technique for failure analysis and semiconductor process characterization. Sample preparation for near-surface defects requires additional care, as the surface of the sample needs to be protected to avoid unintentionally induced damage. This paper demonstrates a straightforward method to create plan view samples in a dual beam focused ion beam (FIB) for TEM studies of near-surface defects, such as misfit dislocations in heteroepitaxial growths. Results show that misfit dislocations are easily imaged in bright-field TEM and STEM for silicon-germanium epitaxial growth. Since FIB tools are ubiquitous in semiconductor failure analysis labs today, the plan view method presented provides a quick to implement, fast, consistent, and straightforward method of generating samples for TEM analysis. While this technique has been optimized for near-surface defects, it can be used with any application requiring plan view TEM analysis.


Author(s):  
Chin Kai Liu ◽  
Chi Jen. Chen ◽  
Jeh Yan.Chiou ◽  
David Su

Abstract Focused ion beam (FIB) has become a useful tool in the Integrated Circuit (IC) industry, It is playing an important role in Failure Analysis (FA), circuit repair and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) specimen preparation. In particular, preparation of TEM samples using FIB has become popular within the last ten years [1]; the progress in this field is well documented. Given the usefulness of FIB, “Artifact” however is a very sensitive issue in TEM inspections. The ability to identify those artifacts in TEM analysis is an important as to understanding the significance of pictures In this paper, we will describe how to measure the damages introduced by FIB sample preparation and introduce a better way to prevent such kind of artifacts.


1996 ◽  
Vol 455 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. Suñol ◽  
M. T. Clavaguera-Mora ◽  
N. Clavaguera ◽  
T. Pradell

ABSTRACTMechanical alloying and rapid solidification are two important routes to obtain glassy alloys. New Fe-Ni based metal-metalloid (P-Si) alloys prepared by these two different processing routes were studied by differential scanning calorimetry and transmission Mössbauer spectroscopy. Mechanical alloyed samples were prepared with elemental precursors, and different nominal compositions. Rapidly solidified alloys were obtained by melt-spinning. The structural analyses show that, independent of the composition, the materials obtained by mechanical alloying are not completely disordered whereas fully amorphous alloys were obtained by rapid solidification. Consequently, the thermal stability of mechanically alloyed samples is lower than that of the analogous material prepared by rapid solidification. The P/Si ratio controls the magnetic interaction of the glassy ribbons obtained by rapid solidification. The experimental results are discussed in terms of the degree of amorphization and crystallization versus processing route and P/Si ratio content.


2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 662-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Simões ◽  
F. Viana ◽  
A.S. Ramos ◽  
M.T. Vieira ◽  
M.F. Vieira

AbstractReactive multilayer thin films that undergo highly exothermic reactions are attractive choices for applications in ignition, propulsion, and joining systems. Ni/Al reactive multilayer thin films were deposited by dc magnetron sputtering with a period of 14 nm. The microstructure of the as-deposited and heat-treated Ni/Al multilayers was studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) in plan view and in cross section. The cross-section samples for TEM and STEM were prepared by focused ion beam lift-out technique. TEM analysis indicates that the as-deposited samples were composed of Ni and Al. High-resolution TEM images reveal the presence of NiAl in small localized regions. Microstructural characterization shows that heat treating at 450 and 700°C transforms the Ni/Al multilayered structure into equiaxed NiAl fine grains.


1999 ◽  
Vol 589 ◽  
Author(s):  
V.V. Volkov ◽  
Yimei Zhu

AbstractAdvanced Fresnel- & Foucault-Lorentz microscopy were applied to analyze magnetic behavior of the grain boundaries in Nd-Fe-B hard magnets. In-situ TEM magnetizing experiments combined with these imaging methods revealed the process of magnetization reversal in polycrystalline sintered and die-upset Nd-Fe-B under various magnetic fields. Fine details of magnetic flux distribution, derived from the magnetic interferograms created by phase-coherent Foucault imaging, provide a quantitative description of the local variation of magnetic flux. Our study suggests that the grain boundaries play an important multi-functional role in the reversal of magnetization, by acting as (a) pinning centers of domain walls, (b) centers of nucleation of reversal domains, and (c) sinks or sources for migrating magnetostatic charges and/or dipoles. They also ensure a smooth transition for irreversible remagnetization in polycrystalline samples.


2010 ◽  
Vol 443 ◽  
pp. 465-468
Author(s):  
Pei Quan Guo ◽  
Shou Ren Wang ◽  
Huan Yong Cui

The study reports a new surface formation technology during manufacturing process of parallel indexing cam mechanism, ion beam sputtering deposition, in which the operation temperature can be controlled below the limitation of phases exchanging or at room temperature. Phase exchanging deformation can be avoided and the shape accuracy and dimension accuracy can be improved compared with surface quenching process. The microstructure and properties of TiAlN/AlN composite film deposited on the profile surface of cam (made of 45 steel) by ion beam sputtering deposition were discussed. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) analysis has been used to characterize film’s microstructure and properties. The micro-hardness and adherence grade were tested.


1998 ◽  
Vol 4 (S2) ◽  
pp. 98-99
Author(s):  
D. H. Ping ◽  
K. Hono ◽  
A. Inoue

Recently, Inoue et al. succeeded in fabricating ultrahigh-strength Al-based alloys consisting of a nanoscale mixture of α-Al and amorphous phases or a mixture of a-Al, amorphous and icosahedral phases in Al-TM-Ce, Al-TM-Ln (TM: transition metals) and Al-Cr-Co-Ce systems by rapid solidification [1-3]. In order to understand the mechanism of the nanoscale microstructural evolution during the rapid solidification processes in these nanocomposite alloys, we have characterized the microstructures of rapidly solidified Al94.5Cr3Co1.5Ce1 and Al96V4Fe2 alloys by atom probe field ion microscopy (APFIM) and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HREM).TEM investigations have revealed that the as-quenched Al94.5Cr3Co1.5Ce1 alloy is composed of a nanoscale mixture of amorphous and α-Al. A typical TEM bright field micrograph is shown in Fig. 1. The microdiffraction patterns taken at various locations in the darkly contrasted region have shown that the region consists of a few interconnected α-Al grains and many localized amorphous regions which are trapped within the Al grains.


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