Determination of high-angle grain-boundary misorientations in melt-textured Y-Ba-Cu-O using transmission electron microscopy studies of intragrain structure

Abstract

Polycrystalline melt-textured Y-Ba-Cu-O samples fabricated by the liquid-phase removal method have been analysed by transmission electron microscopy. These samples contain a number of grains separated by high-angle grain boundaries of length up to several millimetres. In order to determine the misorientation of these high-angle grain boundaries over large distances, we investigated the effects of intragrain features on the misorientations of these high-angle grain boundaries. These intragrain features include platelet boundaries and low-angle grain boundaries. Measurements on adjacent platelets as well as at locations inside single grains show that the presence of platelet boundaries and low-angle grain boundaries affects the variations in misorientation of the high-angle grain boundary and make it possible to determine the misorientation angle over the entire length of the boundary.