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The spatial organization and interactions of constituent components influence cell growth and determine physical and chemical properties of the cell wall, including its rigidity, flexibility, and degradability. Elucidating the interactions between cell wall polysaccharides is crucial for advancing our knowledge of how cell walls are assembled and for designing approaches to efficiently break down cell walls to produce renewable energy and biomaterials. Here, we investigated the effect of defects in the biosynthesis of cell wall components on the nanoscale organization of cellulose in primary cell walls through grazing incidence wide angle X-ray scattering (GIWAXS) measurements of hypocotyls of wild type Arabidopsis thaliana and of cellulose, pectin, and xyloglucan (hemicellulose) deficient mutants. GIWAXS reveals changes in lattice spacings, coherence lengths, and relative crystalline content for cellulose between wild type and mutant plants. In addition, X-ray pole figures constructed using GIWAXS and X-ray diffraction (XRD) rocking scans quantify an emerging measure of cellulose organization, the degree of preferred orientation (texture) of cellulose crystals with respect to the cell wall plane. Comparing X-ray pole figures from pectin-deficient and xyloglucan-deficient mutants to that of wild type plants reveals that cellulose texture is disrupted in pectin-deficient mutants, but not in xyloglucan mutants. Our results indicate that a deficiency of pectin during cell wall biosynthesis alters cellulose organization in plant cell walls.

Compositional and anatomical studies of silicified wood have been carried out extensively all around the world. The classification of silicified wood as such deals with all the forms and phases of silica that come under its umbrella. One such class of silicified wood is fossil wood with a high content of quartz, and there are very limited mentions of this category of fossilized wood. The examined wood belongs to gymnosperm and comes from the Upper Triassic deposits of Madagascar. A fresh approach to such samples is adopted by studying the crystallographic texture of the fossil wood to understand the orientation of the crystals replacing the organic matter within the sample. This work focuses on crystallographic texture analysis based on pole figures measured by X-ray diffraction. The intensity of the pole density maxima on the pole figures measured on the heartwood surface part of the analyzed samples is higher than that on the sapwood. This affirms that the crystallographic texture is sharper at the heartwood part compared to the sapwood. The X-ray tomography study, conducted to understand the difference in mineral distribution within the sample, reveals a greater X-ray absorbing phase on the sapwood of both samples. This is due to the concentration of iron compounds, which both replace the remaining conductive structures of the wood and fill the cavities inside them. We believe that this research on silicified wood is the first research work that encompasses crystallographic texture analysis with pole figures, an approach not previously undertaken in similar studies. We hope that our research can be useful in understanding the processes of replacement of organic matter by minerals.

The volume fraction of austenite (γ), ε martensite and α′ martensite is of key importance in the research of TWIP/TRIP steels. When mechanical loading is involved, the crystallographic texture also develops, which complicates X-ray diffraction-based phase ratio determination. The problem is more pronounced when only a couple, or only one Bragg-reflection can be measured. A solution for such cases is to determine the ratio of the phases based on the pole distribution function of a selected Bragg-reflection of the present phases. In this manuscript, this method is reconsidered for and applied to non-transmittable bulk specimens for the first time in the reflection mode of XRD pole figure measurements. First, the method was applied to a series of γ–α′ powder mixtures. The results were compared to those obtained by the Rietveld method. Afterwards, the technique was applied to strongly textured, bulk TWIP/TRIP steel specimens which were tensile tested at different temperatures. It was shown that the results of the presented method were close to those of the Rietveld technique in the case of powder mixtures. The results of the tensile-tested steels revealed that the α′ content increases with decreasing test temperatures, and the variation of the α′ ratio correlates very well with the ultimate tensile strength versus the temperature, confirming the contribution of the α′ content to the strength of TWIP/TRIP steels.

The ICME paradigm has helped to shift the materials field to be more quantitative, but some topical areas, such as texture comparisons, have lagged behind due to the scarcity of numeric datasets. Texture data is usually published only as visualizations like pole figures, which inhibits its reusability. DRAGON is a newly developed, MATLAB-based tool for extracting quantitative data from pole figures and reconstructing an orientation distribution function (ODF), by interpolating between datapoints placed by the user along contour lines and at local extrema. This work introduces the workflow and user interface of DRAGON and then investigates the uncertainty due to human–computer interaction during use of the tool. The reconstruction process is most robust against user-based error for highly symmetric systems and is most sensitive to variance in placement of local extrema of the pole figures. Based on this analysis, specific recommendations are made for reducing user-based error.

In this paper, the pole figures plotted from X-ray diffraction data are employed to analyze the orientation of hydroxyapatite in ivory and mammoth ivory for the first time. The results present evidence of the lamellar structure and the hydroxyapatite appeared as tabular. A preferred orientation of hydroxyapatite was revealed in terms of the calculated orientation factor and the characteristics found in the pole figures. The c-axes of hydroxyapatite are mainly oriented along the growth direction. Both a-axes are on the left of the angle bisector of Retzius. Approximately 25–30° separates the a-axes and the angle bisector of Retzius in ivory, whereas the figure is approximately 10–15° in mammoth ivory. Our work is significant in providing more accurate knowledge of the shapes and organizational state of bio-mineral crystals and providing insight into crystal formation and development in bio-mineralization.

CVD-coated cemented carbides are widely used for various metal cutting applications. It has been established that the textures of the coating materials especially that of the α-Al2O3 greatly affect the cut performance for some applications. The characterization of the coating texture is thus very important. In this paper, inverse pole figures of α-Al2O3 based on XRD with Bragg Brentano geometry were calculated for several metal cutting inserts available in the market. This method is simple, less time-consuming and can be applied to previously collected data and is compared with that of the EBSD. Despite several differences, IPF maps based on XRD powder diffraction represent the texture of metal cutting inserts.

Comprehensive information on in situ microstructural and crystallographic changes during the preparation/manufacturing processes of various materials is highly necessary to precisely control the microstructural morphology and the preferred orientation (or texture) characteristics for achieving an excellent strength–ductility–toughness balance in advanced engineering materials. In this study, in situ isothermal annealing experiments with cold-rolled 17Ni-0.2C (mass%) martensitic steel sheets were carried out by using the TAKUMI and ENGIN-X time-of-flight neutron diffractometers. The inverse pole figures based on full-profile refinement were extracted to roughly evaluate the preferred orientation features along three principal sample directions of the investigated steel sheets, using the General Structure Analysis System (GSAS) software with built-in generalized spherical harmonic functions. The consistent rolling direction (RD) inverse pole figures from TAKUMI and ENGIN-X confirmed that the time-of-flight neutron diffraction has high repeatability and statistical reliability, revealing that the principal preferred orientation evaluation of steel materials can be realized through 90° TD ➜ ND (transverse direction ➜ normal direction) rotation of the investigated specimen on the sample stage during two neutron diffraction experiments. Moreover, these RD, TD, and ND inverse pole figures before and after the in situ experiments were compared with the corresponding inverse pole figures recalculated from the MUSASI-L complete pole figure measurement and the HIPPO in situ microstructure evaluation, respectively. The similar orientation distribution characteristics suggested that the principal preferred orientation evaluation method can be applied to the in situ microstructural evolution of bulk orthorhombic materials and spatially resolved principal preferred orientation mappings of large engineering structure parts.

A theoretical and experimental study was carry out to investigate deformation mechanisms in a textured titanium alloy. In situ neutron diffraction measurements were performed to analyze different {hk.l} family planes ({10.0}, {10.1}, {11.0} and {00.2}) and determine the corresponding internal strain pole figures. This method was applied to a pure titanium (a-Ti) submitted to a uniaxial tensile load up to 2 %. The experimental data was then used to validate the EPSC model in order to predict the distribution of lattice strains determined by neutron diffraction for various diffraction vector directions. This comparison reveals that the model results were in good agreement with the experimental data and the simulations reproduced the lattice strain development observed on the strain pole figures determined by neutron diffraction.

SignificanceAnthropogenic global warming necessitates the development of renewable carbon-free and carbon-neutral technologies for the future. Electrochemical CO2 reduction is one such technology that has the potential to impact climate change by enabling sustainable routes for the production of fuels and chemicals. Whereas the field of CO2 reduction has attracted great interest, current state-of-the-art electrocatalysts must be improved in product selectivity and energy efficiency to make this pathway viable for the future. Here, we investigate how controlling the surface structure of copper electrocatalysts can guide CO2 reduction activity and selectivity. We show how the coordination environment of Cu surfaces influences oxygenate vs. hydrocarbon formation, providing insights on how to improve selectivity and energy efficiency toward more valuable CO2 reduction products. In this study we control the surface structure of Cu thin-film catalysts to probe the relationship between active sites and catalytic activity for the electroreduction of CO2 to fuels and chemicals. Here, we report physical vapor deposition of Cu thin films on large-format (∼6 cm2) single-crystal substrates, and confirm epitaxial growth in the , , and orientations using X-ray pole figures. To understand the relationship between the bulk and surface structures, in situ electrochemical scanning tunneling microscopy was conducted on Cu(100), (111), and (751) thin films. The studies revealed that Cu(100) and (111) have surface adlattices that are identical to the bulk structure, and that Cu(751) has a heterogeneous kinked surface with (110) terraces that is closely related to the bulk structure. Electrochemical CO2 reduction testing showed that whereas both Cu(100) and (751) thin films are more active and selective for C–C coupling than Cu(111), Cu(751) is the most selective for >2e− oxygenate formation at low overpotentials. Our results demonstrate that epitaxy can be used to grow single-crystal analogous materials as large-format electrodes that provide insights on controlling electrocatalytic activity and selectivity for this reaction.

The specific features of the existing methods of quantitative texture analysis of semiproducts and products made of titanium and zirconium alloys are analyzed. A technique is proposed to determine the Kearns coefficients (f parameters) for sheets made of hcp-metal-based alloys with allowance for the weighting factor of each reflection in the standard stereographic triangle. The f parameters calculated for sheets made of a zirconium alloy and various titanium alloys using different techniques are compared. The accuracy of measuring the Kearns coefficients by the inverse pole figure method is estimated.