1995 Volume 81 Issue 10 Pages 977-982
Nonmetallic inclusions frequently exert a lot of unfavorable influences on the quality of steel. The size of nonmetallic inclusions in current steel products is less than a few μm in diameter. It is desirable to make clear the origin and generation process of such small particles of nonmetallic inclusion. In order to measure the shape, size, composition and inner elemental distribution, development of characterization methods for each inclusion particle is required.
By employing a gallium focused ion beam (FIB) as a primary ion beam of secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), the particle analysis with high spatial resolution is easily achieved. In this paper, we present the novel individual analysis of nonmetallic inclusions in steel by gallium FIB SIMS.
We analyzed in two ways the nonmetallic inclusion particles segregated by electron beam melting. (1) By crosssectioning of the particle using a gallium FIB, elemental maps of cross-section were obtained. The elements were distributed inhomogeneously on the cross-section. (2) We carried out the compositional analysis for several particles individually. Ten particles were analyzed by the shave-off analysis and the multivariate cluster analysis. Based on the composition of each particle, the inclusions were classified into six types.
