High-resolution electron-microscopy analysis of splitting patterns in Ni alloys

The late stages of coarsening of coherent solid particles is strongly influenced by the reduction of elastic strain energy. This produces migration and alignment of particles as well as some other effects. In this investigation, the origin of the so-called splitting pattern arrangement of γ′ precipitate particles, an arrangement which has often been interpreted as being due to splitting of a larger particle into smaller ones, has been studied. The two-particle relationship as to whether they are in-phase or out-of-phase is examined by means of a translation order domain analysis of high-resolution electron-microscopy images along a zone axis parallel to [001]. Ni alloys have been used for the investigation including a binary Ni–Al alloy (producing different volume fractions) and two commercial multicomponent alloys with high volume fraction. About 72% of two-particle pairs forming the splitting configuration are in the out-of-phase relationship, indicating that adjacent pairs are randomly formed and that they are not formed by the splitting of a large particle. In addition, an elasticity analysis shows that the elastic interaction energy of two γ′ particles exhibits a minimum at a certain separation distance along???100?.