Forming alloys with impurity elements is a routine method for modifying the properties of metals. An alternative approach involves the incorporation of interfaces into the crystalline lattice to enhance the metal's properties without changing its chemical composition. The introduction of high-density interfaces in nanostructured materials results in greatly improved strength and hardness; however, interfaces at the nanoscale show low stability. In this Review, I discuss recent developments in the stabilization of nanostructured metals by modifying the architectures of their interfaces. The amount, structure and distribution of several types of interfaces, such as high- and low-angle grain boundaries and twin boundaries, are discussed. I survey several examples of materials with nanotwinned and nanolaminated structures, as well as with gradient nanostructures, describing the techniques used to produce such samples and tracing their exceptional performances back to the nanoscale architectures of their interfaces. The incorporation of structural defects, in particular of interfaces, into crystalline lattices results in enhanced material properties. In this Review, different types of boundaries and interfaces are discussed, including high- and low-angle grain boundaries, twin boundaries, nanotwinned and nanolaminated structures, and gradient nanostructures.

Stabilizing nanostructures in metals using grain and twin boundary architectures

a b s t r a c t Grain boundaries influence mechanical, functional, and kinetic properties of metallic alloys. They can be manipulated via solute decoration enabling changes in energy, mobility, structure, and cohesion or even promoting local phase transformation. In the approach which we refer here to as ‘segregation engineering’ solute decoration is not regarded as an undesired phenomenon but is instead utilized to manipulate specific grain boundary structures, compositions and properties that enable useful material behavior. The underlying thermodynamics follow the adsorption isotherm. Hence, matrix-solute combinations suited for designing interfaces in metallic alloys can be identified by considering four main aspects, namely, the segregation coefficient of the decorating element; its effects on interface cohesion, energy, structure and mobility; its diffusion coefficient; and the free energies of competing bulk phases, precipitate phases or complexions. From a practical perspective, segregation engineering in alloys can be usually realized by a modest diffusion heat treatment, hence, making it available in large scale manufacturing.

Grain boundary segregation engineering in metallic alloys: A pathway to the design of interfaces

A TRIP-assisted dual-phase high-entropy alloy: Grain size and phase fraction effects on deformation behavior

Dual-phase (DP) steel is the flagship of advanced high-strength steels, which were the first among various candidate alloy systems to find application in weight-reduced automotive components. On the one hand, this is a metallurgical success story: Lean alloying and simple thermomechanical treatment enable use of less material to accomplish more performance while complying with demanding environmental and economic constraints. On the other hand, the enormous literature on DP steels demonstrates the immense complexity of microstructure physics in multiphase alloys: Roughly 50 years after the first reports on ferrite-martensite steels, there are still various open scientific questions. Fortunately, the last decades witnessed enormous advances in the development of enabling experimental and simulation techniques, significantly improving the understanding of DP steels. This review provides a detailed account of these improvements, focusing specifically on (a) microstructure evolution during processing, (b) exp...

An Overview of Dual-Phase Steels: Advances in Microstructure-Oriented Processing and Micromechanically Guided Design

Overview on micro- and nanomechanical testing: New insights in interface plasticity and fracture at small length scales

Grain boundary segregation leads to nanoscale chemical variations that can alter a material's performance by orders of magnitude (e.g., embrittlement). To understand this phenomenon, a large number of grain boundaries must be characterized in terms of both their five crystallographic interface parameters and their atomic-scale chemical composition. We demonstrate how this can be achieved using an approach that combines the accuracy of structural characterization in transmission electron microscopy with the 3D chemical sensitivity of atom probe tomography. We find a linear trend between carbon segregation and the misorientation angle ω for low-angle grain boundaries in ferrite, which indicates that ω is the most influential crystallographic parameter in this regime. However, there are significant deviations from this linear trend indicating an additional strong influence of other crystallographic parameters (grain boundary plane, rotation axis). For high-angle grain boundaries, no general trend between carbon excess and ω is observed; i.e., the grain boundary plane and rotation axis have an even higher influence on the segregation behavior in this regime. Slight deviations from special grain boundary configurations are shown to lead to unexpectedly high levels of segregation.

Atomic-Scale Quantification of Grain Boundary Segregation in Nanocrystalline Material

Atomic-scale mechanisms of deformation-induced cementite decomposition in pearlite

Quantification of Grain Boundary Segregation in Nanocrystalline Material

Grain refinement through severe plastic deformation enables synthesis of ultrahigh-strength nanostructured materials. Two challenges exist in that context: First, deformation-driven grain refinement is limited by dynamic dislocation recovery and crystal coarsening due to capillary driving forces; second, grain boundary sliding and hence softening occur when the grain size approaches several nanometers. Here, both challenges have been overcome by severe drawing of a pearlitic steel wire (pearlite: lamellar structure of alternating iron and iron carbide layers). First, at large strains the carbide phase dissolves via mechanical alloying, rendering the initially two-phase pearlite structure into a carbon-supersaturated iron phase. This carbon-rich iron phase evolves into a columnar nanoscaled subgrain structure which topologically prevents grain boundary sliding. Second, Gibbs segregation of the supersaturated carbon to the iron subgrain boundaries reduces their interface energy, hence reducing the driving force for dynamic recovery and crystal coarsening. Thus, a stable cross-sectional subgrain size $l10\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{nm}$ is achieved. These two effects lead to a stable columnar nanosized grain structure that impedes dislocation motion and enables an extreme tensile strength of 7 GPa, making this alloy the strongest ductile bulk material known.

Shoji Goto

Papers

Atomic-Scale Quantification of Grain Boundary Segregation in Nanocrystalline Material

Atomic-scale mechanisms of deformation-induced cementite decomposition in pearlite

Quantification of Grain Boundary Segregation in Nanocrystalline Material

Segregation stabilizes nanocrystalline bulk steel with near theoretical strength.

Evolution of strength and microstructure during annealing of heavily cold-drawn 6.3 GPa hypereutectoid pearlitic steel wire