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. 2015 Apr 22;6:6858. doi: 10.1038/ncomms7858

Figure 1. Pre- and postsintering microstructures of W-15 at% Cr alloy.

Figure 1

(a) Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of as-milled tungsten alloy powder delineates micron-sized particles (scale bar, 1 μm). (b) The bright-field transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image shows the alloy after 20 h of high-energy milling, with nanoscale grains of about 13 nm characteristic size. The selected area diffraction pattern (inset) is indexed as being from a BCC solid solution (scale bar, 50 nm). (c) SEM in back-scatter mode reveals a chromium-rich phase forming necks between the compact particles on heating up to 1,200 °C (scale bar, 500 nm). (d) A direct visualization of a Cr-rich neck adjacent to W-rich particles is shown in the bright-field TEM image with W and Cr elemental maps (superimposed on the micrograph) using scanning TEM with energy dispersive spectroscopy (STEM-EDS) (scale bar, 200 nm). BCC, body-centred cubic.