How are interfaces in terms of atomic arrangements (on crossing the interface) in crystalline composite materials?
Yes, you should scratch of polished surface with diamond pyramid (or so into nanohardness meter with scratching feature) and scan the area of interest (by SEM or AFM). You will see three zones in scratch: in one grain, in interface and in second grain. For example: narrow, wide and narrow again. So, length of wide zone is the thickness of interface.
Well, I understand that the interface is associated with a finite thickness. What do you think about modelling an interface in composites as a line, midway between a plane of atoms A (belonging to material 1) and a plane of atom B (belonging to material 2) ?
For industrial composites with fibers or macro particles your scheme (interface as a line or surface) may have the right to life, but for composite with nano reinforcements the thickness of interface zone is comparable with diameter of particle and should be taken into consideration. For good adhesion between polymeric matrix and particle interface might be much stronger and stiffer than bulk matrix. It happens with epoxy/glass composite. Surface treatment (sizing) of fibers or particles can regulate the behaviours of interface.You should say a bit more details about your subject to avoid typical mistakes in side advices.
Interface in polymeric composites can be modeled as zero thickness as well as finite thickness in meso-scale FE models consisting of plies and interfaces. The interface thickness in unidriectional or woven composites usually range fro 10 microns to 20 microns. So in finite thickness interface models, cohesive zone elements of the given thickness can defined for interfaces. Such detail is also given in our paper ' Finite-element modelling of bending of CFRP laminates: Multiple delaminations'.
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