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American Physical Society, Physical review B, 17(84)

DOI: 10.1103/physrevb.84.174114

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From embryos to precipitates: A study of nucleation and growth in a multicomponent ferritic steel

Journal article published in 2011 by Z. W. Zhang ORCID, C. T. Liu ORCID, X.-L. Wang, K. C. Littrell, M. K. Miller, K. An, B. A. Chin
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

The nucleation and growth of nanoscale precipitates in a new class of high-strength, multicomponent, ferritic steels has been studied with complementary state-of-the-art microstructural characterization techniques of atom probe tomography for individual embryos and precipitates and small-angle neutron scattering for their statistical averages. Both techniques revealed a bimodal size distribution, with subnanometer embryos, and nanoscale precipitates. The embryos, which have a radius of ∼0.4 nm, are enriched in Cu and served as preferential sites for nucleation. The critical radius for nucleation was determined to be ∼0.7 nm. Subsequent growth of the precipitates is dictated by volumetric diffusion, as predicted by the Lifshitz–Slyozov–Wagner theory.