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Srinivasan, S. G.

Publications and source records attributed to Srinivasan, S. G..

Composition-dependent apparent activation-energy and sluggish grain-growth in high entropy alloys

Experimental results reveal that the apparent activation-energy for grain-growth in an fcc-based Al x CoCrFeNi high entropy alloy (HEA) system increases from 179 to 486 kJ/mol when the Al content increases from x = 0.1 to 0.3. These unexpectedly high apparent activation-energy values can be potentially attributed to solute clustering within the fcc solid-solution phase that develops with increasing Al content in this HEA. Detailed microstructural analysis using atom-probe tomography and density functional theory (DFT) calculations strongly indicate the presence of such nanoscale clusters. This phenomenon can change grain-growth from a classical solute-drag regime to a much more sluggish cluster-drag based mechanism in these HEAs.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Local structure, composition, and crystallization mechanism of a model two-phase “composite nanoglass”

We report a detailed study of the local composition and structure of a model, bi-phasic nanoglass with nominal stoichiometry Cu{sub 55}Nb{sub 45}. Three dimensional atom probe data suggest a nanoscale-phase-separated glassy structure having well defined Cu-rich and Nb-rich regions with a characteristic length scale of ≈3 nm. However, extended x-ray absorption fine structure analysis indicates subtle differences in the local environments of Cu and Nb. While the Cu atoms displayed a strong tendency to cluster and negligible structural order beyond the first coordination shell, the Nb atoms had a larger fraction of unlike neighbors (higher chemical order) and a distinctly better-ordered structural environment (higher topological order). This provides the first experimental indication that metallic glass formation may occur due to frustration arising from the competition between chemical ordering and clustering. These observations are complemented by classical as well as ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. Our study indicates that these nanoscale phase-separated glasses are quite distinct from the single phase nanoglasses (studied by Gleiter and others) in the following three respects: (i) they contain at least two structurally and compositionally distinct, nanodispersed, glassy phases, (ii) these phases are separated by comparatively sharp inter-phase boundaries, and (iii) thermally induced crystallization occurs via a complex, multi-step mechanism. Such materials, therefore, appear to constitute a new class of disordered systems that may be called a composite nanoglass.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗