Injection of vacancies at metal grain boundaries during the oxidation of nickel Original Research Article

Nickel foils have been oxidised at 1000 °C on one side only in laboratory air, the other side being protected from oxidation by a reducing atmosphere. After the oxidation treatment, the unoxidised face was carefully examined by using an atomic force microscope. Grain boundaries grooves were characterised and their depth were compared to the ones obtained on the same sample heat treated in the reducing atmosphere during the same time. Grain boundaries grooves are found to be much deeper in the case of the single side oxidised samples. It is shown that this additional grooving is directly linked to the growth of the oxide scale on the opposite side and that it can be explained by the diffusion of the vacancies produced at the oxide scale–metal interface, across the entire sample through grain boundaries. Moreover, the comparison between single side oxidised samples and samples oxidised on both sides points out that voids in grain boundaries are only observed in this latter case proving the vacancies condensation in the metal when the two faces are oxidised.