Turnbull and co-workers have shown that the noble metals Cu, Ag, and Au diffuse into single crystals of Pb and Sn by an interstitialcy mechanism with measured diffusion coefficients of ∼10−6cm2s−1. These experiments have been extended to study the diffusion rates of the noble metals along the interphase boundaries of single crystal of Pb-Sn eutectic alloys and to measure the diffusion coefficient of silver along the interphase boundaries of Ag-Cu eutectic single crystals.

The measured interphase boundary diffusion coefficients of the noble metals in the Pb-Sn single crystals are extremely high, being 2.6 × 10−3cm2s−1for Cu and ∼10−4cm2s−1for Ag and Au at room temperature. These results again imply an interstitialcy mechanism of diffusion at the interphase boundaries. In contrast, the diffusion coefficient of Ag110in a Ag-Cu eutectic single crystal worked out to be ∼8×10−9cm2s−1at 500°C, two orders of magnitude lower than the value obtained by Turnbull and Hoffman for self-diffusion along low-angle (8∼10°) boundaries in silver.