A new instrument will strip materials down to individual atoms, mapping their three-dimensional positions to reveal exactly how a substance is built and why it fails. The three-dimensional atom probe, originally developed at Oxford, is the only tool that can see a material’s microstructure atom-by-atom—giving scientists what the abstract calls “the molecular biology of materials.” This project will upgrade that instrument to analyse larger volumes far faster, and to handle semiconductors for the first time. The upgraded probe will tackle specific industrial problems: copper clusters forming in steel pressure vessels for nuclear submarine reactors, and the multilayer materials used in next-generation computer hard-disk read heads. By linking atomic-scale experiments with modelling, the work aims to produce better design tools for new materials and nanotechnology devices. The impact is largely industrial and fundamental—improving the reliability of critical infrastructure and enabling faster development of advanced electronics—rather than a direct change to everyday life.
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New materials increasingly rely on chemical effects at a very fine scale, sometimes at the atomic level. Understanding how these materials work, how they degrade in service and how we can improve them requires knowledge of how they are put together at this scale. The three-dimensional atom probe (3DAP), first developed at Oxford University, is the only way of seeing the microstructure of materials, atom-by-atom in 3-dimensions. In this way, the 3DAP can be thought of as giving scientists the molecular biology of materials and so helping them understand how materials work. This project aims to greatly improve the existing 3DAP analysis facilities and so provide advanced capabilities for materials analysis at the atomic-scale for scientists in the UK. The instrumentation developed in the project will allow larger volumes of material to be analysed in much shorter times than previously, so that more of the material microstructure can be seen, and also allow semiconductor materials and devices to be studied. Once the new instrumentation is developed, it will be used to study a number of technologically important materials science problems, such as the formation of copper clusters in steels used for the pressure vessels in the reactors on nuclear-powered submarines. The multilayer materials which are being developed for the next generation of read heads in computer hard disks will also be investigated, in order to understand better the way that the structure and the chemistry of these layers control their properties. By linking experiments and modelling at the atomic scale, this project will produce better tools for the design and development of new materials and nanotechnology devices.
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