Interfaces play critical roles in materials and are usually both structurally and compositionally complex microstructural features. The precise characterization of their nature in three-dimensions at the atomic scale is one of the grand challenges for microscopy and microanalysis, as this information is crucial to establish structure–property relationships. Atom probe tomography is well suited to analyzing the chemistry of interfaces at the nanoscale. However, optimizing such microanalysis of interfaces requires great care in the implementation across all aspects of the technique from specimen preparation to data analysis and ultimately the interpretation of this information. This article provides critical perspectives on key aspects pertaining to spatial resolution limits and the issues with the compositional analysis that can limit the quantification of interface measurements. Here, we use the example of grain boundaries in steels; however, the results are applicable for the characterization of grain boundaries and transformation interfaces in a very wide range of industrially relevant engineering materials.

中文翻译：

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原子探针断层扫描界面和晶界分析的思考

界面在材料中起着至关重要的作用，通常在结构和成分上都是复杂的微观结构特征。在原子尺度上在三个维度上精确表征它们的性质是显微镜和微分析的重大挑战之一，因为这些信息对于建立结构-性质关系至关重要。原子探针断层扫描非常适合分析纳米级界面的化学性质。然而，优化界面的这种微观分析需要在从样品制备到数据分析以及最终解释该信息的技术的所有方面的实施中非常小心。本文就与空间分辨率限制有关的关键方面以及可能限制界面测量量化的成分分析问题提供了批判性观点。在这里，我们以钢中的晶界为例；然而，该结果适用于在非常广泛的工业相关工程材料中表征晶界和转变界面。