Nanostructural materials formation by mechanical alloying: Morphologic analysis based on transmission and scanning electron microscopic observations

The development of nanostructured materials offers new scientific and technological perspectives due to the specific interesting physical properties of these materials. These properties derive either from their reduced grain size or from the structure and properties of the grain boundaries, which constitute a significant volume fraction. Mechanical alloying, widely used to produce dispersion-strengthened and amorphous alloys, has been employed in recent years to synthesize nanocrystalline metallic, semiconductors, and covalent component-based materials. Based on statistical analysis of transmission and scanning electron microscopic images, the distribution and spatial repartition of the nanostructural material prepared by mechanical alloying and/or attrition are presented for some specific cases.