title: Effect of hydrogen on the integrity of aluminium-oxide interface at elevated temperatures.
abstract: Hydrogen can facilitate the detachment of protective oxide layer off metals and alloys. The degradation is usually exacerbated at elevated temperatures in many industrial applications; however, its origin remains poorly understood. Here by heating hydrogenated aluminium inside an environmental transmission electron microscope, we show that hydrogen exposure of just a few minutes can greatly degrade the high temperature integrity of metal-oxide interface. Moreover, there exists a critical temperature of ∼150 °C, above which the growth of cavities at the metal-oxide interface reverses to shrinkage, followed by the formation of a few giant cavities. Vacancy supersaturation, activation of a long-range diffusion pathway along the detached interface and the dissociation of hydrogen-vacancy complexes are critical factors affecting this behaviour. These results enrich the understanding of hydrogen-induced interfacial failure at elevated temperatures.
authors.affiliation: Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
authors.forename: Meng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
authors.forename: De-Gang
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-7658-2738
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.|Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA.
authors.forename: Evan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.|Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Ju
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7841-8058
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Division of Physical Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science &Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Xi-Xiang
authors.initials: XX
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
authors.forename: Zhi-Wei
authors.initials: ZW
authors.lastname: Shan