Visualization of fine precipitates TiN in low-alloy steel by using energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy

In this paper, advantage and measurement principle of energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy (EF-TEM), which can measure the elemental distribution on local area in a material, are outlined. The energy-filtering technique by EF-TEM is applied to the visualization of fine precipitates TiN in a low-alloy steel. Through the observations of the energy-filtered images of TiN using Ti-M edge in electron energy-loss spectra, TiN in α-Fe matrix is clearly observed. As a result, it is clarified that this technique is quite useful to evaluate the spatial distribution of TiN in the low-alloy steel. Furthermore, the advantage of the energy filtering technique using M edge for visualization of nano-precipitates containing transition metals such as titanium is discussed.