RESEARCH NEWS

Grain boundaries take leading role in deformation

MECHANICAL BEHAVIOR

sources and pile-ups. Instead it has been suggested that

Zhiwei Shan of the University of Pittsburgh and Eric Stach of Berkeley Lab at the National
Center for Electron Microscopy's In-Situ Microscope. (Credit: Roy Kaltschmidt, Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory.)
Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, Lawrence
Berkeley and Sandia National Laboratories report direct
evidence of grain boundary mediated deformation in
nanocrystalline Ni [Shan et al., Science (2004) 305, 654].
Plastic deformation of coarse-grained metals is mediated by
the nucleation and movement of dislocations. However, in
nanocrystalline metals, the grain size precludes dislocation
grain boundary mediated plasticity in the form of sliding and
rotating takes over in the nanocrystalline regime. To date,
however, the only evidence for this has been molecular
dynamics simulations and indirect experimental data.
Now, however, Scott X. Mao and coworkers have provided
direct evidence for grain boundary mediated plasticity in
nanocrystalline Ni using dark-field imaging in a transmission
electron microscope (TEM). “Bright-field images are
constructed using the direct electrons, while dark-field
images use the diffracted electrons,” explains Mao. “In
bright-field imaging, regions of the sample that scatter a lot
of electrons, like defects such as dislocations, look darker.
With dark-field images, strongly diffracting regions look
brighter.” When the researchers viewed a video sequence of
Ni under strain, they saw small regions rapidly brightening
and growing larger. The bright features appear to consist of
a number of smaller grains. By comparing undeformed and
deformed samples, the researchers found that the bright
regions correspond to neighboring grains that have
undergone a rotation during strain. The researchers believe
that this is direct confirmation that grain boundaries are
mediating the deformation.
The dark-field observations confirm that below a certain grain
size, grain boundary mediated deformation becomes
significant. “It’s [a] continuous, not a sharp change,” says
another of the researchers, Zhiwei Shan. “In describing grain
boundary deformations we chose the word ‘prominent’
carefully, because even in nanocrystalline metal, dislocations
still play a role.” The researchers observed evidence of
trapped dislocations in stressed grains. The two mechanisms,
therefore, compete for prominence in a sample, and which
dominates depends on the conditions.
Cordelia Sealy

Explosion of pits in stainless steel

METALS & ALLOYS

All stainless steels undergo pitting
corrosion that leads to failure.
Research by J. L. Hudson of the
University of Virginia and colleagues at
the Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-
Gesellschaft in Berlin, Germany extends
understanding of this phenomenon and
gives clues to its prevention [Punckt
et al., Science (2004) 305, 1133].
Localized corrosion of steel is preceded
by the appearance of metastable pits a
few microns in size on the surface. The
pits are produced by localized
dissolution of metal at surface defects
and inclusions. Pitting corrosion shows
a sudden transition from low level
activity with a few metastable states to
a state of high pitting activity, despite
small changes in conditions such as
applied potential, corrodant
concentration, or temperature. It is
currently thought that this transition is
associated with the stabilization of
metastable pits. However, Hudson and
coworkers suggest an alternative
scenario based on their studies of
pitting corrosion in stainless steel using
ellipsometry for surface imaging (EMSI)
and specially adapted, high-resolution,
contrast-enhanced optical microscopy.
EMSI, which detects the polarization
rotation of light reflected from the
surface, allows real-time observation of
ultrathin layers over the entire metal
surface area. Regions of brightness
reveal changes in the protective oxide
thickness around an active pit. Since
the spatial resolution of EMSI is limited
to ~12 µm, the researchers also used
optical microscopy to observe the onset
of pitting corrosion. There is an initial,
rapid increase in the creation of pits
and total current. However, the surface
only contains a finite number of
potential pit sites so a saturation point
is reached where no new pits are
created. After this point, pits can only
be reactivated. Contrary to the existing
model of pitting corrosion, all the pits
are metastable, with growing lifetimes.
The transition to high corrosion rates is
not caused by the stabilization of pits
but by the explosion in the number of
metastable pits. This process could be
a general property of pitting corrosion.
Cordelia Sealy

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