Low-temperature straining stage for in situ studies of thermoelastic martensitic transformations in a 200 kV electron microscope

A straining and heating/cooling stage has been built for an H700H Hitachi microscope. It provides the possibilities of cooling to 110 K, of heating to 370 K and of stressing a specimen with a maximum tensile force of 50 N (the maximum elongation is 1.2 mm). The maximum tilt angle is about ±25°. The present specimen stage has been employed to study microstructural evolutions during martensitic phase transformations in Cu-Zn-Al single crystals. Interface migration and the movement of partial dislocations have been observed during temperature and stress cycling.