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Interpreting Atom Probe Data from Oxide–Metal Interfaces

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2018

Ingrid McCarroll Open the ORCID record for Ingrid McCarroll [Opens in a new window] ,
Barbara Scherrer ,
Peter Felfer ,
Michael P. Moody  and
Julie M. Cairney
Ingrid McCarroll*
Affiliation:
School of Aerospace Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Australian Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Barbara Scherrer
Affiliation:
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200003, Israel
Peter Felfer
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science, Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Martensstrasse 5, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany
Michael P. Moody
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science, The University of Oxford, 16 Parks Rd, Oxford OX1 3PH, UK
Julie M. Cairney
Affiliation:
School of Aerospace Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Australian Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
*
*Author for correspondence: Ingrid McCarroll, E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Understanding oxide–metal interfaces is crucial to the advancement of materials and components for many industries, most notably for semiconductor devices and power generation. Atom probe tomography provides three-dimensional, atomic scale information about chemical composition, making it an excellent technique for interface analysis. However, difficulties arise when analyzing interfacial regions due to trajectory aberrations, such as local magnification, and reconstruction artifacts. Correlative microscopy and field simulation techniques have revealed that nonuniform evolution of the tip geometry, caused by heterogeneous field evaporation, is partly responsible for these artifacts. Here we attempt to understand these trajectory artifacts through a study of the local evaporation field conditions. With a better understanding of the local evaporation field, it may be possible to account for some of the local magnification effects during the reconstruction process, eliminating these artifacts before data analysis.

Keywords

atom probe tomography/APTreconstructioninterface analysishigh field evaporation
Type
Materials Science Applications
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , August 2018 , pp. 342 - 349
Copyright
© Microscopy Society of America 2018 

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