Invited Paper IS+NS+TR-WeA10
In-situ Transmission Electron Microscopy of Solid-Liquid Interfaces

Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 4:40 pm, Room 310

Most of the industrially important inorganic materials are manufactured from liquid phase. This is true for metallic materials and semiconductors (e.g. Si). Even in the case of ceramic materials, the liquid phase plays an important role in the process of sintering. The performances of the final products of these materials are controlled during the transformation from liquid to solid states. Needless to say, the reaction front of the liquid-to-solid transformation is the interface between the solid, being solidified, and the liquid phases. Thus, in order to manufacture final products with high performance, it is of great necessity to control the solidification process, and this necessitates, in turn, a detailed knowledge of the solid-liquid (S-L) interface, which controls the solidification process. Recently it has become possible to observe S-L interface by an in-situ heating experiment in a transmission electron microscope (TEM), some of which will be presented in this presentation.