Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T14:08:39.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Metastable Phase Formation by Interdiffusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2011

W.W. Johnson*
Affiliation:
138-78 Keck Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125
Get access

Extract

The formation and growth of an amorphous phase or other metastable phases during interdiffusion reactions in metals has been the subject of much study during the past decade [1-4]. The thermodynamic and kinetic factors which control phase selection and growth during the evolution of a binary diffusion couple are of particular interest. Amorphous phase formation in binary A/B diffusion couples has been shown to be favored in systems satisfying several themodynamic and kinetic criteria. First, the free energy of formation of the amorphous phase from the reactants must be negative. This provides the thermodynamic driving force to form the amorphous phase. In general, this condition is best satisfied in cases where the crystalline metals A and B have a negative heat of mixing in the amorphous phase [1,2,4]. On the other hand, the formation of simple crystalline solid solutions of the parent metals should be relatively unfavorable. Thus amorphous phase formation occurs generally in systems for which crystalline terminal solid solutions are restricted. In such binary systems, it is generally true that other crystalline intermetallic phases exist which have lower free energies than the amorphous phase and thus a larger thermodynamic driving force for growth during interdiffusion. As such, additional kinetic constraints must be present which suppress the nucleation and/or growth of the competing crystalline intermetallic phases [2,4].

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1. Schwarz, R.B. and Johnson, W.L., Phys. Rev. Lett., 51 415 (1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. Johnson, W.L., Prog. in Mat. Sci., 30 81 (1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3. Samwer, K., Physics Reports, 161 (1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. Johnson, W.L., in Materials Interfaces, ed. by Wolf, D. and Yip, S., (Chapman and Hall, London, 1992), Chapter 20Google Scholar
5. Cheng, Y.T., Nicolet, M.-A., and Johnson, W.L., Appl. Phys. Lett., 47 800 (1985)Google Scholar
6. Hahn, H., Averback, R.S., and Rothman, S.J., Phys. Rev. B, 33 8825 (1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7. Meng, W.J., Cotts, E.J., and Johnson, W.L., Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc., 77, 223 (1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8. Fecht, H.J. and Johnson, W.L., Nature, 334, 50 (1988)Google Scholar
9. Li, M. and Johnson, W.L., Phys. Rev. Lett., 70, 1120 (1993)Google Scholar