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Grain Size Control in the Processing of Poly-Crystalline Materials

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A special issue of Crystals (ISSN 2073-4352). This special issue belongs to the section "Inorganic Crystalline Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (17 December 2021) | Viewed by 12611

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Xialu Wei

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Guest Editor

Adjunct Faculty, Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA
Interests: materials characterization; crystalline materials; powder metallurgy; mechanics of materials; computational materials science

Prof. Diletta Giuntini

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Guest Editor

Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
Interests: Advanced ceramic and nanocomposite materials; Mechanical behavior of materials; Material processing and process modeling

Dr. Yanhao Dong

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Guest Editor

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Interests: Ceramics; Energy materials

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In poly-crystalline materials, grain size, grain size distribution and grain boundaries are critical to materials’ physical and chemical properties. Tremendous progress has been made to control the microstructure evolution when processing bulk poly-crystalline materials, including many novel processing techniques. The microstructural features of the processed materials are correlated with the properties of the final products. Advances to retrieve the desired grain size distribution for specific applications depend on the comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms and kinetics of recrystallization and grain growth, as well as grain refinement techniques. There have also been considerable research efforts dedicated to developing both analytical and numerical grain growth/microstructure evolution models as an essential step toward strengthening the theoretical aspects of grain growth.

This Special Issue is particularly concerned with, but not limited to, the topics outlined in the keywords. We sincerely invite researchers in the field of material processing to contribute to this Special Issue and to make advances to this important aspect in poly-crystalline materials.

Dr. Xialu Wei
Prof. Diletta Giuntini
Dr. Yanhao Dong
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Crystals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Grain growth
Grain size distribution
Poly-crystalline materials
Complexions
Grain boundary strengthening
Hall-Petch relationship
Nano and micro-structural analysis
Modeling

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 5226 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ultra-Fast Laser Fabrication of Alumina Micro-Sample Array and High-Throughput Characterization of Microstructure and Hardness

by Xiao Geng, Jianan Tang, Bridget Sheridan, Siddhartha Sarkar, Jianhua Tong, Hai Xiao, Dongsheng Li, Rajendra K. Bordia and Fei Peng

Crystals 2021, 11(8), 890; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/cryst11080890 - 30 Jul 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1861

Abstract

In the light of recent advances in material informatics, there is a great demand for high-throughput approaches of sample fabrication and property characterization. Currently, no high-throughput approach has been demonstrated for the fast sampling of the microstructure and the correlated properties. In this paper, we demonstrate the ultra-fast fabrication of an alumina sample array and the high-throughput hardness characterization of these sample units. The alumina sample array was fabricated using picosecond (PS) laser micromachining and CO₂ laser sintering within a short time (i.e., less than a few minutes). After laser sintering, the hardness of these sample units was characterized using micro-indentation, and the microstructure was observed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). In each sample unit, the microstructure was uniform for the entire top surface and within about 20 µm depth from the top surface. The relative density (RD) and corresponding micro-hardness of the sample units was found to continuously vary over a wide range from 89% RD with 600 kgf/mm² hardness to 99% RD with 1609 kgf/mm² hardness. For these laser-sintered samples, the correlation of hardness and relative density of the alumina matched well with the literature reports on sintered alumina obtained using conventional low-throughput furnace sintering experiments. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Grain Size Control in the Processing of Poly-Crystalline Materials)

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13 pages, 3221 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Influence of the Curing and Annealing Temperatures on the Properties of Solution Processed Tin Oxide Thin Films

by Christophe Avis and Jin Jang

Crystals 2021, 11(8), 851; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/cryst11080851 - 22 Jul 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2249

Abstract

We report the effect of the curing (T_curing) and annealing (T_anneal) temperatures on the structural, electrical, and optical properties of solution processed tin oxide. T_anneal was varied from 300 to 500 °C, and T_curing from 200 °C to T_anneal. All T_anneal lead to a polycrystalline phase, but the amorphous phase was observed at T_anneal = 300 °C and T_curing ranging from 250 to 300 °C. This could be explained by the melting point of the precursor (SnCl₂), occurring at 250 °C. The crystallinity can be effectively controlled by the annealing temperature, but the curing temperature dramatically affects the grain size. We can reach grain sizes from 5–10 nm (T_curing = 200 °C and T_anneal = 300 °C) to 30–50 nm (T_curing = 500 °C and T_anneal = 500 °C). At a fixed T_anneal, Hall mobilities, carrier concentration, and conductivity increased with the curing temperature. The Hall mobility was in the range of 1 to 9.4 cm²/Vs, the carrier concentration was 10¹⁸ to 10¹⁹ cm⁻³, and the conductivity could reach ~20 S/cm when the grain size was 30–50 nm. The optical transmittance, the optical bandgap, the refractive index, and the extinction coefficient were also analyzed and they show a correlation with the annealing process. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Grain Size Control in the Processing of Poly-Crystalline Materials)

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Review

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57 pages, 28559 KiB

Open AccessReview

A Review of Grain Boundary and Heterointerface Characterization in Polycrystalline Oxides by (Scanning) Transmission Electron Microscopy

by Hasti Vahidi, Komal Syed, Huiming Guo, Xin Wang, Jenna Laurice Wardini, Jenny Martinez and William John Bowman

Crystals 2021, 11(8), 878; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/cryst11080878 - 28 Jul 2021

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 7390

Abstract

Interfaces such as grain boundaries (GBs) and heterointerfaces (HIs) are known to play a crucial role in structure-property relationships of polycrystalline materials. While several methods have been used to characterize such interfaces, advanced transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning TEM (STEM) techniques have proven to be uniquely powerful tools, enabling quantification of atomic structure, electronic structure, chemistry, order/disorder, and point defect distributions below the atomic scale. This review focuses on recent progress in characterization of polycrystalline oxide interfaces using S/TEM techniques including imaging, analytical spectroscopies such as energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) and electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) and scanning diffraction methods such as precession electron nano diffraction (PEND) and 4D-STEM. First, a brief introduction to interfaces, GBs, HIs, and relevant techniques is given. Then, experimental studies which directly correlate GB/HI S/TEM characterization with measured properties of polycrystalline oxides are presented to both strengthen our understanding of these interfaces, and to demonstrate the instrumental capabilities available in the S/TEM. Finally, existing challenges and future development opportunities are discussed. In summary, this article is prepared as a guide for scientists and engineers interested in learning about, and/or using advanced S/TEM techniques to characterize interfaces in polycrystalline materials, particularly ceramic oxides. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Grain Size Control in the Processing of Poly-Crystalline Materials)

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