Abstract
Materials undergoing reversible solid-to-solid martensitic phase transformations are desirable for applications in medical sensors and actuators1, eco-friendly refrigerators2,3 and energy conversion devices4. The ability to pass back and forth through the phase transformation many times without degradation of properties (termed ‘reversibility’) is critical for these applications. Materials tuned to satisfy a certain geometric compatibility condition have been shown2,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14 to exhibit high reversibility, measured by low hysteresis and small migration of transformation temperature under cycling6,9,12,15. Recently, stronger compatibility conditions called the ‘cofactor conditions’5,15 have been proposed theoretically to achieve even better reversibility. Here we report the enhanced reversibility and unusual microstructure of the first martensitic material, Zn45Au30Cu25, that closely satisfies the cofactor conditions. We observe four striking properties of this material. (1) Despite a transformation strain of 8%, the transformation temperature shifts less than 0.5 °C after more than 16,000 thermal cycles. For comparison, the transformation temperature of the ubiquitous NiTi alloy shifts up to 20 °C in the first 20 cycles9,16. (2) The hysteresis remains approximately 2 °C during this cycling. For comparison, the hysteresis of the NiTi alloy is up to 70 °C (refs 9, 12). (3) The alloy exhibits an unusual riverine microstructure of martensite not seen in other martensites. (4) Unlike that of typical polycrystal martensites, its microstructure changes drastically in consecutive transformation cycles, whereas macroscopic properties such as transformation temperature and latent heat are nearly reproducible. These results promise a concrete strategy for seeking ultra-reliable martensitic materials.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the financial support of MURI projects FA9550-12-1-0458 (administered by AFOSR) and W911NF-07-1-0410 (administered by ARO). This research also benefited from the support of NSF-PIRE grant number OISE-0967140. Y.S. thanks the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota for support through a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship.
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R.D.J. is the Principal Investigator and initiated and supervised the work. Y.S. designed the thermal cycling apparatus and carried out optical and calorimetric experiments. X.C. performed X-ray diffraction measurements and theoretical calculations of microstructure. V.D. synthesized all the specimens used in the study. T.W.S. provided expertise in the experimental design and data acquisition. All authors discussed the results and approved the manuscript. Y.S., X.C. and R.D.J. interpreted the data and wrote the manuscript.
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Supplementary Information
This file contains 2 Supplementary Discussions, Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Figures 1-4 and Supplementary Tables 1-2. (PDF 2785 kb)
Non-repeating microstructure of Zn45Au30Cu25 in consecutive cycles
This video records the evolution of surface morphology in Zn45Au30Cu25 in several consecutive phase transformation cycles beginning with the 65th cycle. The horizontal span of the screen is about 1 mm. The replay is in approximately real time. The temperature range of oscillation is set between -32 and -42 °C on the controller, but the real temperature range is slightly wider because of overshooting upon heating and cooling. We can see that this sample exhibits completely different microstructure in consecutive cycles, which is different from common polycrystal martensitic materials. In addition, unusual riverine microstructures and single variant wide bands are observed, indicating high degree of compatibility between martensite and austenite during the microstructure development. (MOV 26133 kb)
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Song, Y., Chen, X., Dabade, V. et al. Enhanced reversibility and unusual microstructure of a phase-transforming material. Nature 502, 85–88 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12532
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12532
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