Early-stage dislocation structures inside dislocation channels of rapid-cooled and tensile-deformed aluminum single crystals were investigated by using the bright field imaging mode in a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM-BF). Inside dislocation channels, arrays of the prismatic dislocation loops originated from dislocations of the primary slip system, i.e., , were mainly formed. Dislocations of the primary coplanar slip systems such as and were activated owing to internal stresses caused by the primary dislocations pile-up inside the cleared channels. The activated primary coplanar dislocations left the dislocation loops elongating along the edge dislocation directions behind them. Inter-dislocation-loop interactions occur especially at the arrays of the prismatic dislocation loops originated from dislocations of the primary slip systems and produce “butterfly shape” dislocation loops. As the “butterfly shape” dislocation loops have “sessile” junctions, they should act as “obstacles” against the following multiplications and glides of the dislocations. When the interactions proceed, “tangled structures” would be formed around the arrays of the prismatic dislocation loops originated from dislocations of the primary slip system.

Power devices, such as power conversion and control devices, with excellent performance and high efficiency, are essential to realizing a carbon-neutral society. Towards that goal, devices using wide bandgap semiconductors, such as SiC and GaN, are being developed. Because wide bandgap semiconductors can operate at higher temperatures than conventional Si devices can, packaging technology with high heat resistance is required to demonstrate their performance. Previously, we proposed a sinter bonding technique using Ni nanoparticles for die bonding, i.e., bonding semiconductor chips to substrates. We demonstrate that Ni could be bonded to Al by sintering in the air. Meanwhile, the structures of recently reported power devices contain surface electrodes with an Al-Ni interface. Our research on Ni nanoparticle bonding and the Al-Ni interface in recent device structures demonstrated that evaluating the changes in the Al-Ni interface at high temperatures is crucial to ensure long-term reliability for high-temperature operation of the devices. Therefore, the diffusion behavior of Ni/Al multilayer samples annealed in air or vacuum was evaluated using Auger electron spectroscopy. Furthermore, the effect of the natural Al oxide film at the Ni/Al interface was also investigated. The results revealed that in the Ni/Al₂O₃/Al structure, atmospheric heating induced interdiffusion of Ni and Al through the Al oxide layer and that the natural Al oxide layer acted as a barrier to diffusion during vacuum heating.

The influence of impurity element Sb on the oxidation resistance and creep strength of the single crystal superalloy TMS-238 was studied in this work. It was found that 1.1 ppm Sb clearly degrades the oxidation resistance, but not for the creep strength. As we increased the amount of Sb up to 3.8 ppm, the weight loss of the sample increased, as expected for the effect of Sb on the oxidation resistance. To understand the mechanism, the oxide structure was characterized by scanning electron microscope with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), and three-dimensional atom probe (3DAP) was used to visualize the Sb distribution. 3DAP analysis has revealed Sb segregation of 0.03 at％ to 0.04 at％ at the oxide/substrate interfaces for 3.8 ppm Sb sample. These results indicated that the segregation of Sb, a low melting point metallic impurity, at the oxide/substrate interface degrades the oxidation resistance for TMS-238.