Open AccessMeasuring grain boundary segregation: tomographic atom probe field ion microscopy (APFIM) vs. analytical scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM)
Author(s) -
T. Walther
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of physics. conference series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.21
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1742-6596
pISSN - 1742-6588
DOI - 10.1088/1742-6596/1190/1/012002
Subject(s) - atom probe , field ion microscope , grain boundary , scanning transmission electron microscopy , materials science , transmission electron microscopy , dark field microscopy , energy filtered transmission electron microscopy , microscopy , analytical chemistry (journal) , ion , metallurgy , chemistry , nanotechnology , optics , microstructure , physics , organic chemistry , chromatography
Grain boundary segregation is an important phenomenon in metallurgy and semiconductor technology. Some recent studies by tomographic atom probe field ion microscopy (APFIM) claim to have measured the interfacial excess of atoms segregated to grain boundaries with ultra-high precision, down to 0.01-0.02 atoms/nm 2 . This study critically evaluates these claims by simulations. It is shown that atom probe tomography is no ‘magic bullet’ and suffers similar physical constraints as analytical scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). Data analyses from both methods have much in common in terms of geometry, performance, systematic and statistical errors. It is shown that an analysis method previously developed for (S)TEM called conceptEM can also successfully be applied to APFIM data.