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In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. Retrieving information on the chemical and bonding states of atoms in a material in three-dimensions is challenging even for the most advanced imaging techniques. Here, we demonstrate that this information is accessible via straight-flight-path atom probe tomography experimental data, however it requires additional processing.
Using an activation energy model that involves linear field dependance, and complementing it with DFT simulations, we extract the ion energy loss related to the kinetics of the field evaporation process from the mass peak shape. In turn, we reconstruct how evaporated atoms were originally bound to the surface. We name our data processing approach evaporation energy loss spectroscopy FEELS , and showcase its application by analyzing microstructural features and defects in an array of metallic materials.
There is a gap in the cornucopia of microscopy and microanalysis techniques to achieve a three-dimensional technique able to access the binding state of atoms with a resolution better than a nanometer. We introduce here a data-analysis approach that makes it easier to quantify the activation kinetics of field evaporation, in the low-activation-energy regime where voltage-pulsed atom-probe tomography VPAPT takes place.
If a further theory can be put in place that quantitatively links these activation-related parameters to parameters relating to surface-atom binding, as we firmly hope, then it will become possible to extract surface-binding-related information from APT measurements.
