Microstructure and defect characters of lithium niobate with different Li concentrations

Lithium niobate is a kind of well-known dielectric materials and its defect microstructures have shown huge impact on acousto-optical, piezoelectric, and electro-optical properties. However, understanding the involved defect structures and...

The Study on Microstructures and Properties of the Direct Squeeze Casting Al-Zn-Mg-Cu-Zr-Sc Alloy

Trace elements Sc was added to the Al-Zn-Mg-Cu-Zr alloys, the differences of the microstructure and properties using gravity casting and squeeze casting are compared. The result shows that through the addition of trace elements Sc, the Al-Zn-Mg-Cu-Zr alloys casting microstructure was refined effectively, dendrite segregation was alleviated and the mechanical property of alloy was enhanced. Using squeeze casting forming could improve the compactness of the alloys, decrease the probability of occurrence of shrinkage cavities, porosity and segregation, in addition, the grain could be refined by the pressure forced on the alloy melt. Combined the element Sc microalloying and squeeze casting used in Al-Zn-Mg-Cu-Zr alloy forming, we could get the casting with uniform, compact, little defect microstructures. This combination could provide a new way to the Al-Zn-Mg-Cu-Zr alloy forming.

Defect microstructures in garnet, omphacite and symplectite from UHP eclogites, eastern Dabieshan, China: a TEM and FTIR study

Garnets, omphacite and the minerals of a clinopyroxene/amphibole/plagioclase symplectite in UHP eclogites from Yingshan, Dabieshan have been investigated by TEM and Micro-FTIR. TEM reveals that the predominant microstructures in eclogites and symplectite-forming minerals are chain multiplicity faults (CMFs), dislocation substructures, clusters of water molecules up to ∼50 nm in diameter and recrystallized grains ∼1.75 μm in diameter. This indicates dynamic recrystallization of omphacite, probably during an eclogite-facies metamorphic episode. The deformation structures in symplectite-forming minerals were produced by plastic deformation related to an amphibolite-facies retrograde metamorphic event. CMFs described in the present work demonstrate the existence of an infrequent ½<011> (010) slip system for P2/n omphacite from an UHP eclogite sample from Dabieshan. The frequent occurrence of CMFs in omphacite suggests that they indicate an important deformation mechanism in omphacite and shows that this slip system plays a significant role in the deformation and recovery of eclogite. The hydrous components of deformed minerals may cause plastic deformation of the rocks by dislocation movement and accelerate retrograde metamorphism. Micro-FTIR results show that all the garnets and omphacites contain structural water occurring as hydroxyl groups (OH) or water (H2O). The structural water contents in omphacite range from 110—710 ppm and in garnet from 0—180 ppm. Water released during decompression might supply an early-stage retrograde metamorphic fluid.

Multi Scale Study of Self-irradiation Effects in Plutonium Alloys

Experimental measurements have shown that plutonium alloys exhibit changes of their macroscopic as well as microscopic properties. For example, a swelling of plutonium alloys was observed with aging with dilatometry and X-ray diffraction. The main idea to explain these changes rises in self irradiation undergoing by those materials. Plutonium α decay is at the origin of displacements cascades creating a large amount of structural defects. These later by anihilation and recombination give rise to larger defects such as voids and clusters. The aim of this work is to study the occurrence of such phenomena combining ab-initio, molecular dynamic and Monte Carlo methods in a coherent multi-scale approach which would help to understand long term behavior of structural defects and consequences of self irradiation. We show that plutonium does not seem to behave like other metals under ion irradiation. We discuss results obtained for high energy displacements cascade simulations. After parametric study of displacements cascade simulations combining temperature and cascade energy has been exposed, superposition of low energies displacements cascades is discussed as a method to construct realistic defect microstructures and to reach a rational use of computational time. At the end, we will present results of preliminary Monte Carlo simulations based on our molecular dynamic data which show that the spatial correlation of the stable defects populations created by the cascades seems to have a great influence on the predicted swelling.