Authors

Rong Sun, Zhongchang Wang, Mitsuhiro Saito, Naoya Shibata & Yuichi Ikuhara

Abstract

 Grain boundary (GB) phase transformations often occur in polycrystalline materials while exposed to external stimuli and are universally implicated in substantially affecting their properties, yet atomic-scale knowledge on the transformation process is far from developed. We combine advanced electron microscopy, spectroscopy and first-principles calculations to probe individual TiO2 GB subject to different atmosphere, and to demonstrate that stimulated structural defects can self-assemble at GB, forming an ordered structure, which results in GB nonstoichiometry and structural transformations at the atomic scale. The threedimensional transformations afford new perspectives on the structural defects at GBs and on the development of strategies to manipulate practically significant GB transformations.