Nanostructured Al88Ni4Sm8 alloys investigated by transmission electron and field-ion microscopies

This paper presents results on the formation of α-Al nanocrystals in Al88Ni4Sm8 amorphous alloy produced by melt spinning. The crystallisation behaviour was examined by means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM, HREM) and atom-probe field-ion microscopy (APFIM). For various annealing treatments, the nanoparticles grow with a dendritic-like shape, reaching a maximum average size of 30–35 nm. This rapid growth is shown to be due to a low density of nuclei at the beginning of the nanocrystallisation process and the diffusion-field impingement which limits the nanocrystal growth is supposed to occur much later in this case.