Effect of interface phase transformations on diffusion and segregation in high-angle grain boundaries

TL;DR

This study combines atomistic simulations and experimental data to demonstrate that structural phase transformations in high-angle grain boundaries significantly influence impurity diffusion and segregation patterns in metals.

Contribution

It provides the first convincing evidence linking grain boundary phase transformations to diffusion behavior, validated by both simulations and experimental data.

Findings

Unusual non-Arrhenius diffusion behavior linked to phase transformation

Low-temperature phase shows monolayer segregation

High-temperature phase exhibits bilayer segregation

Abstract

Recent experimental measurements of Ag impurity diffusion in the {\Sigma}5 (310) grain boundary (GB) in Cu revealed an unusual non-Arrhenius behavior suggestive of a possible structural transformation [Divinski et al., Phys. Rev. B 85, 144104 (2012)]. On the other hand, atomistic computer simulations have recently discovered phase transformations in high-angle GBs in metals [Frolov et al., arXiv:1211.1756v2 (2013)]. In this paper we report on atomistic simulations of Ag diffusion and segregation in two different structural phases of the Cu {\Sigma}5 (310) GB which transform to each other with temperature. The obtained excellent agreement with the experimental data validates the hypothesis that the unusual diffusion behavior seen in the experiment was caused by a phase transformation. The simulations also predict that the low-temperature GB phase exhibits a monolayer segregation pattern while the high-temperature phase features a bilayer segregation. Together, the simulations and experiment provide the first convincing evidence for the existence of structural phase transformations in high- angle metallic GBs and demonstrate the possibility of their detection by GB diffusion measurements and atomistic simulations.