A principal activity within the Center for the Accelerated Maturation of Materials is the development of utilization of state-of-the-art microstructural characterization techniques. A suite of tools and techniques either currently exist or are being developed within CAMM, including 2D and 3D characterization tools and techniques for the automated analysis and digitization of microstructures. Such tools have been successfully applied to several of our past and current research programs, and will be applied as a set of tools or techniques for future programs.
The establishment of Materials Characterization as a principal activity of the center is based on a philosophy that ultimately the material structure (either the meso-, micro-, or nano-structure) controls the properties of a material. Based on the collective knowledge and experience of those involved in the center, it is possible to fully characterize a material across its length scales. For example, analysis that is commonly performed in the center includes:

• Microstructural features over a range of millimeters, including
  • 2-D Optical Micrographs to resolve features including grain structure, phase distribution and fraction, and the scale of coarse microstructural features (e.g., colonies in b-processed Ti-based alloys)
  • 3-D Optical Micrograph serial reconstructions to provide for the 3-dimensional size and distribution of microstructural features
  • Scanning Electron Microscopy (SE, BSE) micrographs, energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) semi-quantitative maps, and electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) maps of phase distributions and orientations (e.g., orientation microscopy)
  • X-Ray diffraction for phase analysis and bulk crystallographic information
  • Microstructural features over a range of microns, including
• 2-D SEM (SE, BSE) micrographs, energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) semi-quantitative maps, and electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) maps of phase distributions and orientations (e.g., orientation microscopy)
• 3-D SEM by using the Dual-Beam FIB for the provision of SE, BSE micrographs and EDS and EBSD maps
• Microstructural features over a range of nanometers, including
  • TEM analysis of phases, phase relationships, and the nature of defects
  • TEM analysis of elemental distributions via STEM mapping and electron energy loss spectroscopy
• Atomic level information, including
  • HR-TEM analysis of phases, phase relationships, defects, and interfaces
  • 3-D Atom Probe Tomography via collaboration among CAMM’s partner institutions
• Microstructural quantification and digitization, including
  • 2-D Stereology
  • Direct 3-D quantification
  • Other novel techniques for the digitization and representation of microstructures (e.g., correlation functions and probability distribution functions) via collaboration among CAMM’s partner institutions

Additionally, new work is underway to fully exploit the capabilities of electron tomography and ultra-high resolution EELS for information on chemical distribution and bonding from areas that are less than 2 nm.