NANOSTRUCTURAL MATERIALS FORMATION BY MECHANICAL ALLOYING - MORPHOLOGIC ANALYSIS BASED ON TRANSMISSION AND SCANNING ELECTRON-MICROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS

The development of nanostructured materials offers new scientific and technological perspectives due to the specific interesting physical pr operties of these materials. These properties derive either from their reduced grain size or from the structure and properties of the grain boundaries, which constitute a significant volume fraction. Mechanical alloying, widely used to produce dispersion-strengthened and amorphou s alloys, has been employed in recent years to synthesize nanocrystall ine metallic, semiconductors, and covalent component-based materials. Based on statistical analysis of transmission and scanning electron mi croscopic images, the distribution and spatial repartition of the nano structural material prepared by mechanical alloying and/or attrition a re presented for some specific cases. (C) Elsevier Science Inc., 1996.