Early stage spinodal decomposition and microstructure evolution in TiAlN : A combined in-situ SAXS and phase field study

• This paper describes in detail the microstructure and phase evolution in Ti0.33Al0.67N and Ti0.50Al0.50N coatings during isothermal annealing, studied by in-situ small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS), in combination with phase field simulations. We show that the isostructural spinodal decomposition occurs in two stages. During the initial stage, the phase segregation proceeds with a constant size of AlN- and TiN-rich domains with an experimentally measured radius of ~0.7 nm for 5 and 20 min at 900 and 850 °C respectively in the Ti0.50Al0.50N alloy. The length of  the initial stage depends on temperature as well as metal composition, and is shorter for the higher Al-content  coating. After the initial stage, the coherent cubic AlN- and TiN-rich domains coarsen. The coarsening process is kinetically limited by diffusion, which allowed us to estimate the diffusivity and activation energies of the metals to 1.4·10-7 m2s-1 and 3.14 eV at-1 respectively.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Materialteknik -- Keramteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Materials Engineering -- Ceramics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

TiAlN

Phase-field simulations

Spinodal decomposition

SAXS

High energy x-ray diffraction

Coarsening

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