Abstract
The near equiatomic NiTi alloy is the most successful shape memory alloy by a large margin. It is widely and increasingly used in biomedical devices. Yet, despite having a repeatable superelastic effect and excellent shape-memory, NiTi is very far from satisfying the conditions that characterize the most reversible phase-transforming materials. Thus, the scientific reasons underlying its vast success present an enigma. In this paper, we perform rigorous mathematical derivations and accurate density-functional theory calculations of transformation mechanisms to seek previously unrecognized twinlike defects that we term involution domains, and we observe them in real space in NiTi by aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy. Involution domains lead to an additional 216 compatible interfaces between phases in NiTi, and we theorize that this feature contributes importantly to its reliability. They are expected to arise in other transformations and to alter the conventional interpretation of the mechanism of the martensitic transformation.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 103611 |
| Journal | Physical Review Materials |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 10 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 26 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:X.C. acknowledges the financial support of the HK Research Grants Council through the General Research Fund under Grants No. 16207017 and No. 16201019. C.O. and J.C. acknowledge additional support from the US Department of Energy Early Career Research Program. R.D.J. was supported by NSF (DMREF-1629026), ONR (N00014-18-1-2766), MURI (FA9550-18-1-0095, FA9550-16-1-0566), and a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship. Work at the Molecular Foundry and Advanced Light Source was supported by the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Physical Society.