Unified Theoretical Framework for Polycrystalline Pattern Evolution

TL;DR

This paper presents a unified theoretical framework explaining how bulk and interface dissipation influence grain growth in polycrystalline materials, accounting for effects of thermal noise and non-equilibrium patterns.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analytical and simulation-based model that unifies the understanding of pattern evolution across different polycrystalline systems, highlighting the role of bulk dissipation.

Findings

Bulk dissipation limits growth in non-equilibrium patterns.

Thermal noise reduces bulk dissipation, speeding up coarsening.

The framework applies across various length and time scales.

Abstract

The rate of curvature-driven grain growth in polycrystalline materials is well-known to be limited by interface dissipation. We show analytically and by simulations that, for systems forming modulated phases or non-equilibrium patterns with crystal ordering, growth is limited by bulk dissipation associated with lattice translation, which dramatically slows down grain coarsening. We also show that bulk dissipation is reduced by thermal noise so that those systems exhibit faster coarsening behavior dominated by interface dissipation for high Peierls barrier and high noise. Those results provide a unified theoretical framework for understanding and modeling polycrystalline pattern evolution in diverse systems over a broad range of length and time scales.