Abstract
In order to clarify how the lattices of austenite and martensite are connected at the interface on the atomic scale in the region within the width of the transformation twins or between slipped planes, a high-resolution electron microscopy study of the austenite–martensite interface was performed for Fe–23.0Ni–3.8Mn, Fe–30.5Ni–10Co–3Ti and Fe–8.8Cr–1.1C (mass %) alloys. Martensitic transformations occur at a low temperature in these alloys and exhibit various transformation characteristics, such as isothermal and athermal transformations, Kurdjumow–Sacks and Nishiyama orientational relationships, and a reversible mobile interface and a non-reversible interface in the reverse transformation. There were three important findings: (1) the (121)f interface is made up of two component planes, i.e. the terrace plane (111)f (//(011)b) and the ledge (0
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge Dr. T. Kikuchi, National Institute for Materials Science, for his help in preparing the samples, and Prof. Y. Nakamura, Tokyo Institute of Technology, for his constant encouragement throughout the present work.
Notes
HREM could not reveal the existence of the transformation twins because the diffraction pattern of the twin is exactly the same as that of the matrix, since the incident beam is parallel to the ⟨ 111 ⟩b twinning shear direction and, furthermore, the {112}b twinning boundary is also parallel to the incident beam under the conditions for observation of the lattice images from direction A.