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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.05296 |
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| _version_ | 1866908694791323648 |
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| author | Nakashima, Philip N. H. Shao, Yu-Tsun Zhang, Zezhong Smith, Andrew E. Liu, Tianyu Medhekar, Nikhil V. Etheridge, Joanne Bourgeois, Laure Zuo, Jian-Min |
| author_facet | Nakashima, Philip N. H. Shao, Yu-Tsun Zhang, Zezhong Smith, Andrew E. Liu, Tianyu Medhekar, Nikhil V. Etheridge, Joanne Bourgeois, Laure Zuo, Jian-Min |
| contents | All materials have defects and many contain nanostructures, both of which disrupt chemical bonding - the basis of materials properties. No experimental measurements of bonding electron distributions associated with defects and nanostructures have ever been possible. We present a method enabling such measurements and interrogate nanovoids surrounded by vacancies - the most fundamental of nanostructures and defects - in aluminium. We measure the volume of a vacancy with 3% uncertainty and map vacancy concentrations surrounding nanovoids with nanometre resolution in three dimensions where previously only two-dimensional mapping was possible. We discover that radiation-damaged voids can "heal". Our bonding measurements are depth-resolved, vacancy-sensitive, and agree with density functional theory. This work opens bonding electron density measurements to inhomogeneous nanostructured multi-phased materials so that the electronic origins of phenomena such as strengthening, weakening, interface functionality, solute diffusion and phase transformations within them may be revealed. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_05296 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Mapping vacancy and bonding electron distributions around aluminium nanovoids Nakashima, Philip N. H. Shao, Yu-Tsun Zhang, Zezhong Smith, Andrew E. Liu, Tianyu Medhekar, Nikhil V. Etheridge, Joanne Bourgeois, Laure Zuo, Jian-Min Materials Science Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Applied Physics Chemical Physics Computational Physics All materials have defects and many contain nanostructures, both of which disrupt chemical bonding - the basis of materials properties. No experimental measurements of bonding electron distributions associated with defects and nanostructures have ever been possible. We present a method enabling such measurements and interrogate nanovoids surrounded by vacancies - the most fundamental of nanostructures and defects - in aluminium. We measure the volume of a vacancy with 3% uncertainty and map vacancy concentrations surrounding nanovoids with nanometre resolution in three dimensions where previously only two-dimensional mapping was possible. We discover that radiation-damaged voids can "heal". Our bonding measurements are depth-resolved, vacancy-sensitive, and agree with density functional theory. This work opens bonding electron density measurements to inhomogeneous nanostructured multi-phased materials so that the electronic origins of phenomena such as strengthening, weakening, interface functionality, solute diffusion and phase transformations within them may be revealed. |
| title | Mapping vacancy and bonding electron distributions around aluminium nanovoids |
| topic | Materials Science Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Applied Physics Chemical Physics Computational Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.05296 |