Three-dimensional X-ray structural microscopy with submicrometre resolution

B. C. Larson (), Wenge Yang, G. E. Ice, J. D. Budai and J. Z. Tischler
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B. C. Larson: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Wenge Yang: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
G. E. Ice: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
J. D. Budai: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
J. Z. Tischler: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Nature, 2002, vol. 415, issue 6874, 887-890

Abstract: Abstract Advanced materials and processing techniques are based largely on the generation and control of non-homogeneous microstructures, such as precipitates and grain boundaries. X-ray tomography can provide three-dimensional density and chemical distributions of such structures with submicrometre resolution1; structural methods exist that give submicrometre resolution in two dimensions2,3,4,5,6,7,8; and techniques are available for obtaining grain-centroid positions and grain-average strains in three dimensions7,9. But non-destructive point-to-point three-dimensional structural probes have not hitherto been available for investigations at the critical mesoscopic length scales (tenths to hundreds of micrometres). As a result, investigations of three-dimensional mesoscale phenomena—such as grain growth10,11, deformation12,13,14,15,16, crumpling17,18,19 and strain-gradient effects20—rely increasingly on computation and modelling without direct experimental input. Here we describe a three-dimensional X-ray microscopy technique that uses polychromatic synchrotron X-ray microbeams to probe local crystal structure, orientation and strain tensors with submicrometre spatial resolution. We demonstrate the utility of this approach with micrometre-resolution three-dimensional measurements of grain orientations and sizes in polycrystalline aluminium, and with micrometre depth-resolved measurements of elastic strain tensors in cylindrically bent silicon. This technique is applicable to single-crystal, polycrystalline, composite and functionally graded materials.

Date: 2002
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DOI: 10.1038/415887a

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