Geometry of Microstructures

Abstract

The generic term that is used to describe the physical elements that make up a microstructure in this text applies the concept of a phase borrowed from classical thermodynamics. Each phase in a microstructure is a set of three dimensional features. To belong to the same phase the features must have the same internal physical properties. Usually this means features of one phase have the same chemical makeup and the same atomic, molecular, crystal or biological structure. The collection of parts of the structure that belong to the same phase is one example of a feature set.