Modeling evolution of composition patterns in a binary surface alloy

TL;DR

This paper models how composition patterns evolve in a binary surface alloy, considering effects like spinodal decomposition, compositional stress, and diffusion anisotropy, with a focus on surface orientation influences.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic computational approach to analyze how anisotropy and surface orientation affect pattern formation in alloy surfaces.

Findings

Anisotropy influences pattern orientation and formation.

Surface orientation significantly affects pattern evolution.

The model predicts different pattern behaviors for various crystallographic surfaces.

Abstract

Evolution of composition patterns in the annealed, single-crystal surface alloy film is considered in the presence of the spinodal decomposition, the compositional stress and the diffusion anisotropy. While the former two effects contribute to overall phase separation, the anisotropy, correlated with the surface crystallographic orientation, guides the in-plane formation and orientation of a pattern. The impacts of the anisotropy parameters on patterns are systematically computed for [110], [100], and [111]-oriented fcc cubic alloy surfaces.