Time-resolved scattering studies of phase separation in alloys

Kinetics of phase separation in alloys has been an area of interest for decades. Various experimental methods have been utilized to examine the kinetic processes so as to understand the rate of transformations as well as their underlying physical mechanisms. Spinodal decomposition, nucleation and growth, coarsening, order-disorder transformations, martensitic/displacive transformations, etc. have been the topics of numerous research leading to our improved understanding of the nature of the transformations and their corresponding microstructure-property relationships. In this article, we will summarize our fifteen-year studies of phase separation in Ni-based superalloys and in Al-Li alloys by means of time-resolved scattering techniques, including both small-angle and wide-angle scattering. We will demonstrate with our examples the kinetics information attainable from those time-resolved scattering experiments.