The morphology and crystallography of lath martensite in Fe-C alloys

The morphology and crystallography of lath martensite in Fe-C alloys containing various carbon contents from 0.0026 to 0.61% were studied by analyzing electron back scattered diffraction patterns in scanning electron microscopy and Kikuchi diffraction patterns in transmission electron microscopy. As carbon content increases, the sizes of both packet and block decrease. In low carbon steels (0.0026-0.38%C), a block which is observed as having different contrasts under optical microscopy contains two groups (sub-blocks) of laths which are of two K-S variants with a misorientation of about 10 degrees. On the other hand, in the high carbon alloy (0.61%C), a block consists of laths of a single K-S variant. (C) 2003 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.