Investigation of some selected metallurgical problems with the tomographic atom probe
Résumé
The tomographic atom probe is a new instrument which enables a small volume of a metallic material to be reconstructed in 3D on a near-atomic scale. The basic principles on which the tomographic atom probe relies are briefly described. The performance of this new generation of apparatus is illustrated on the ground of some specific experiments. The intrinsic resolution of the spatial detector that was designed and developed is estimated. Several 3D atomic reconstructions of materials are provided. Images related to the investigation of precipitation processes in two-phase nickel-base superalloys, grain-boundary segregation effects as well as G-phase formation related to the spinodal decomposition of the ferrite in duplex stainless steels are given as illustrations. The quantitativity of composition measurements and the mass resolution of the instrument are discussed. \textcopyright 1994.