Identification of nano-width variants in a fully monoclinic martensitic Ni50Ti50 alloy by scanning electron microscope-based transmission Kikuchi diffraction and improved groupoid structure approach

Abstract

Nano-width martensite plates in a fully martensitic Ni50Ti50 alloy are indexed successfully by using the off-axis transmission Kikuchi diffraction in scanning electron microscope (i.e., SEM-based TKD). The data obtained by SEM-TKD are effectively interpreted using an improved approach based on the framework of the theoretical groupoid structure method, where the equivalent variants transformed from the monoclinic variants are introduced to calculate all theoretical axis/angle pairs of rotation, and to formulate a complete list of source martensite to target martensite pairs. Consequently, B19′ monoclinic martensite variants in NiTi alloys are identified unambiguously, by using numerical comparison between the experimental and theoretical rotation components, without the reference of retained parent phase.