Growth of oriented tricrystals

Important step in successful experiment in solid state physics is defined sample. As a representative of such samples are mainly oriented single crystals as well as bicrystals of model systems. Besides these samples, we developed technology of growing unique oriented tricrystals for – even in the world – rare investigation of properties of triple junctions of grain boundaries.

The tricrystals of an Fe–3mass%Si alloy are grown using the floating-zone-technique with optical heating (Fig. 1) from carefully fabricated seed of required structure. Using the growth rate of 10 mm/h in argon atmosphere, bulk tricrystals are prepared (Fig. 2) which are suitable to study mainly the properties of the triple junctions of the grain boundaries such as their structure, chemical composition and mobility. All these data enable us to elucidate the behavior of widely applied polycrystals during their thermo-mechanical treatment. In addition, they can also be used to produce polycrystals with optimum properties via Grain Boundary Engineering.

P. Lejček, J. Kopeček, M. Jarošová: Growth of oriented tricrystals of an Fe–Si alloy, J. Crystal Growth 287 (2006) 262–266. doi:10.1016/j.jcrysgro.2005.11.040