Distortion-detecting microscopy to shed light on material properties

By doing so, they expect to find out the causes these distortions and facilitate studies on how such atomic-scale variations can influence a material’s properties.

Researchers have long known that the properties of complex materials, such as alloys, are influenced by how the material’s component atoms are organised.

‘We knew where the atoms were on average, but we also knew that there were variations in a material - there can be significant displacements, where atoms don’t fit into that average pattern,’ said Dr. Doug Irving, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the new work.

‘However, detecting these distortions required indirect methods that could be difficult to interpret, so we couldn’t fully explore how a material’s atomic structure affects its properties,’ said Dr. James LeBeau, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and corresponding author of a paper describing the new work.