P. Sontakke, A. Gupta, M. Krishnan, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India
Ni-Mn-Ga alloy system has attracted considerable attention during the past few years and is expected to become a promising potential for fast-responsive and compact actuators owing to its large magnetic field induced strain (upto 10%) along with other interesting properties like premartensitic transition, large magnetocaloric effect, high transformation temperature and low stress for twin variant rearrangement. Depending upon the composition, the most important martensites that exist in off-stoichiometric Ni2MnGa alloys are the modulated 5M and 7M, and, the non-modulated tetragonal NM ones. In this study, a systematic investigation was carried out on the 5M martensite in a well characterised Ni50Mn28.9Ga21.1 alloy using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and x-ray diffractometry for determining its crystal structure, substructure, intervariant interfaces and self-accommodating microstructure. It was established that the 5M martensite is a monoclinic crystal structure with internally faulted substructure. Figs1-3. The crystallographic features of the martensitic microstructure as observed by TEM are found to be in agreement with those predicted by computations based on the phenomenological theory of martensite crystallography.
Summary: In this study, the crystal structure, substructure, intervariant interfaces and self-accommodating microstructure of the 5M martensite in Ni
50Mn
28.9Ga
21.1 alloy was investigated using transmission electron microscopy and x-ray diffractometry. The 5M martensite was found to be a monoclinic structure with twin like internal defect substructure. The main features of the martensite are found to be consistent with the predictions of computations based on the phenomenological theory of martensite crystallography.