The recrystallization process in Ti50Pd50 martensite, in which the dif
fusion rate is very slow, was studied by electron microscopy, without
introducing prior deformation, As a result, the high density of twins
giving rise to lattice invariantshear were found to drive the recrysta
llization. Careful observations in such a system indicate that the nuc
lei for recrystallization exist in the original martensite, and with t
he same orientation of one of the correspondence-variants. (C) 1998 El
sevier Science B.V.