Creep tests were conducted under a condition of constant stress on two aluminum-based alloys containing particles: Al-5% Mg-0.25% Fe and Al-5% Zn-0.22% Fe. The role of grain boundary sliding was examined in the plane of the surface using a square grid printed on the surface by carbon deposition and perpendicular to the surface using two-beam interferometry. Estimates of the contribution of grain boundary sliding to the total strain, εgbs/εt reveal two trends; (i) the sliding contribution is consistently higher in the Al-Mg-Fe alloy, and (ii) the sliding contribution is essentially independent of strain in the Al-Mg-Fe alloy, but it shows a significant decrease with increasing strain in the Al-Zn-Fe alloy. Sliding is inhibited by the presence of particles and its contributions to the total strain are low. This inhibition is attributed to the interaction between the grain boundary dislocations responsible for sliding and particles in the boundaries.

The size of crystallites in mono-dispersed cubic silver bromide grains was measured by applying a powder X-ray diffraction method and Scherrer's equation to grains that were suspended in swollen gelatin layers. In order to evaluate the existence of defects, the measured crystallite size was compared to those measured by using a scanning electron microscope. In the case of the grains prepared by the controlled double jet method, the size of crystallites was equal to the edge length of the grains that had edge lengths smaller than 400 nm. This result proved the usefulness of the above-stated method for measuring the size of crystallites and also evaluating the presence of any crystal defect in each grain. In the case of the grains, which were precipitated in the presence of a sensitizing dye and potassium iodide, the size of crystallites was smaller than the edge's length, indicating the discontinuities in the grains introduced during the precipitation process.