Abstract
AbstractCarbon fiber technology drives significant development in lightweight and multifunctional applications. However, the microstructure of carbon fibers is not completely understood. A big challenge is to obtain the distribution of heteroatoms, for instance nitrogen, with high spatial resolution in three dimensions. Atom probe tomography (APT) has the potential to meet this challenge, but APT of carbon fibers is still relatively unexplored. We performed APT on three types of carbon fibers, including one high modulus type and two intermediate modulus types. Here, we present the methods to interpret the complex mass spectra of carbon fibers, enhance the mass resolution, and increase the obtained analysis volume. Finally, the origin of multiple hit events and possible methods to mitigate multiple hit events are also discussed. This paper provides guidance for future APT studies on carbon fibers, and thus leads the way to a deeper understanding of the microstructure, and consequently advancements in wide applications of carbon fibers.
Highlights
Due to their superior specific stiffness and strength, carbon fibers in reinforced composites advance the development in many technical sectors, such as aerospace and automotive industries
The high specimen failure rate during Atom probe tomography (APT) analyses is mainly attributed to the high evaporation field of carbon (155 V/nm) (Southworth & Ralph, 1969; Mukherjee et al, 2016), a rich abundance of defects and the anisotropic microstructure
We present a systematic procedure for identification and deconvolution of peaks in the mass spectra from carbon fibers: mass spectra from the chemically simple high modulus (HM) carbon fiber are used as a baseline for more complex spectra from the intermediate modulus (IM) carbon fibers
Summary
Due to their superior specific stiffness and strength, carbon fibers in reinforced composites advance the development in many technical sectors, such as aerospace and automotive industries. Carbon fibers play a vital role in research frontiers of multifunctional materials such as structural power composites (Asp et al, 2019, 2021) and shape-morphing composites (Johannisson et al, 2020). In these multifunctional devices, carbon fibers act as the traditional load bearing component, and are simultaneously electrochemically active by hosting and releasing lithium ions as a negative electrode. Carbon fibers act as the traditional load bearing component, and are simultaneously electrochemically active by hosting and releasing lithium ions as a negative electrode Still, it is not fully understood how the microstructure of carbon fibers governs their mechanical and electrochemical properties. Important to obtain deep insights into the heteroatoms of carbon fibers and correlate the microstructure to electrochemical properties
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