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Transformation microstructure and nucleation crystallography in high Sc-contained Al–Sc alloys after laser treatment

  • Metals & corrosion
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Abstract

The high Sc-alloyed Al–Sc sputtering target is applied to produce Sc-doped AlN (Al1−xScxN) thin films through reactive magnetron sputtering. The sputtering process demands Al–Sc sputtering targets with fine and stable grain sizes featuring random orientations. In this work, laser treatment with varying scanning speeds is applied to the Al-(10 at.%, 20 at.%) Sc alloys, and the microstructure is characterized using the electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) method and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results indicate that the laser treatment enhances the solubility of Sc in the matrix; however, the nucleation crystallography during solidification differs among these alloys. Epitaxial growth is observed in Al–20Sc, remaining a large grain size with different scanning speeds. In contrast, Al–10Sc exhibits refined grain sizes, reduced to about 2 μm compared to 200 μm in the as-casted alloy. Laser treatment generates more than 40% twin boundaries, leading to the randomization of the texture and refinement of the grain size through twin variants. This study demonstrates the feasibility of grain boundary engineering for Al–10Sc sputtering targets through laser scanning.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2022YFB3504403).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. GRIKIN Advanced Material Co., Ltd., Beijing, 102200, China

    He Jinjiang, Jia Qian, Wang Xingquan, Cao Xiaomeng, Ding Zhaochong & Cao Ziqi

  2. Bejing Technology Research Center for Sputtering Target Material Engineering of High Pure Metals, Beijing, 102200, China

    He Jinjiang & Wang Xingquan

  3. School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Gu Xinfu

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  1. He Jinjiang
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Contributions

He Jinjiang contributed to conceptualization, investigation, and draft preparation. Jia Qian contributed to experiment on laser treatment and data analysis. Wang Xingquan, Cao Xiaomeng, and Cao Ziqi contributed to data curation and visualization. Ding Zhaochong contributed to the casted alloy preparation. Xinfu Gu contributed to conceptualization, supervision, and data analysis. All authors were involved in writing and reviewing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to He Jinjiang or Gu Xinfu.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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The authors declare that no experiments were involved with human tissue.

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Handling Editor: Zhao Shen.

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Jinjiang, H., Qian, J., Xingquan, W. et al. Transformation microstructure and nucleation crystallography in high Sc-contained Al–Sc alloys after laser treatment. J Mater Sci 59, 7075–7088 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-024-09576-7

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