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Grain boundary segregation in Al–Mn electrodeposits prepared from ionic liquid

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Abstract

Among the various preparation methods for nanocrystalline alloys, ionic liquid electrodeposition at low temperature is of interest for its scalability and efficiency. To achieve nanostructures with stabilized structures, it is desirable to directly deposit alloys in which the grain boundaries are decorated with a segregated alloying element. Here a combination of atom-probe tomography and aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy are used to confirm that in Al–Mn nanocrystalline alloys deposited from an ionic liquid, Mn is slightly segregated at grain boundaries in the as-deposited condition. The apparent heat of grain boundary segregation is calculated to lie between 1100 and 1500 J mol−1, which aligns reasonably well with a value calculated using a Miedema-based segregation model, and which is also in line with a more refined CALPHAD-type estimation if it is assumed that the Al–Mn deposits are not fully equilibrated at the deposition temperature.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported (in part) by the U.S. Army Research Office under contract W911NF-13-D-0001 through the Institute of Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT. The APT work was performed in part at the Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS), a member of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), which is supported by the National Science Foundation under NSF Award No. ECS-0335765. CNS is part of Harvard University. The aberration corrected STEM work was supported with ONR-MURI program, Grant Number N00014-11-0678.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Ting-Yun Huang & Christopher A. Schuh

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Lehigh University, 27 Memorial Dr W, Bethlehem, PA, 18015, USA

    Christopher J. Marvel & Martin P. Harmer

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, 5500 Wabash Ave, Terre Haute, IN, 47803, USA

    Patrick R. Cantwell

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  1. Ting-Yun Huang
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Correspondence to Christopher A. Schuh.

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Huang, TY., Marvel, C.J., Cantwell, P.R. et al. Grain boundary segregation in Al–Mn electrodeposits prepared from ionic liquid. J Mater Sci 51, 438–448 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-015-9316-2

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