Frontiers of synchrotron research suggest even brighter future for materials science and engineering

Published on the 30th June 2016 by ANSTO Staff

The editors of a special issue of the Materials Research Society MRS Bulletin have suggested that future research trends must utilise complementarity—applying multiple techniques using different quantum beams for a more efficient and effective characterisation of materials.

MRS Society Bulletin — 2D in situ data acquisition from a materials oscilloscope. (a) False-color photograph of a glowing titanium aluminide-based alloy specimen (cylinder, 8 mmlength and 4 mm diameter) between the jaws of a thermomechanical processor. The thermocouple is shown by the two red lines at the bottom. A sketched incoming beam and a diffraction pattern in the background were added to the illustration. 30 diffraction patterns from a zirconium alloy under heating in (b) α phase and (c) ( α + β ) phase, and(d) during hot plastic compressive flow in the β phase.

At ANSTO, Liss has developed the concept of the materials oscilloscope, in which two-dimensional diffraction rings are captured in real time; creating a movie while a specimen undergoes thermo-mechanical treatment.

Characteristic traces in diffractograms help distinguish various deformational and annealing processes, such as grain coarsening, refinement, subgrain formation, grain rotation, slip, twinning, dynamic recovery and recrystallisation.

It is reported that high energy X-ray investigations with time-resolved in situ and in operando experiments are important for the analysis of cathode synthesis, the loading cycle, charge and discharge processes and studies of buried layers in energy storage materials.

“With the refinements and advances we have seen in synchrotron techniques, complemented by neutron scattering, the future is very bright indeed for materials science research and industrial applications,’ said Liss.

Link to publication: http://dx.doi.org/10.1557/mrs.2016.112

Link to a MRS webinar on the topic: http://www.prolibraries.com/mrs/?select=session&sessionID=6218