Publications

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The study of materials interfaces dates back over a century. In solid systems and from an engineering perspective, free surfaces and internal (grain and/or phase) boundaries influence a wide range of properties, such as thermal, electrical and optical transport, and mechanical ones. The properties and the role of interfaces has been discussed extensively in various reviews such as by Sutton and Balluffi. As the characteristic feature size of a materials system (i.e., grain size) is decreased to the nanometer scale, interface-driven physics is expected to dominate due to the increased density of such planar defects. Moreover, interfacial attributes, thermodynamics, and mobility play a key role in phase transformations, such as solidification dynamics and structural transitions in solids, and in homogenization and microstructural evolution processes, such as grain growth, coarsening, and recrystallization. In summary, the set of articles published in this special topic titled: “Interface-Driven Phenomena in Solids: Thermodynamics, Kinetics and Chemistry” covers topics related to microstructure evolution, segregation/adsorption phenomena and interface interactions with other materials defects.

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The temperature dependence of grain boundary mobility is complex, varied, and rarely fits ideal Arrhenius behavior. This work presents a series of case studies of planar grain boundaries in a model FCC system that were previously demonstrated to exhibit a variety of temperature-dependent mobility behaviors. It is demonstrated that characterization of the mobility versus temperature plots is not sufficient to predict the atomic motion mechanism of the grain boundaries. Herein, the temperature-dependent motion and atomistic motion mechanisms of planar grain boundaries are driven by a synthetic, orientation-dependent, driving force. The systems studied include CSL boundaries with Σ values of 5, 7, and 15, including both symmetric and asymmetric boundaries. These boundaries represent a range of temperature-dependent trends including thermally activated, antithermal, and roughening behaviors. Examining the atomic-level motion mechanisms of the thermally activated boundaries reveals that each involves a complex shuffle, and at least one atom that changes the plane it resides on. The motion mechanism of the antithermal boundary is qualitatively different and involves an in-plane coordinated shuffle that rotates atoms about a fixed atom lying on a point in the coincident site lattice. Furthermore, this provides a mechanistic reason for the observed high mobility, even at low temperatures, which is due to the low activation energy needed for such motion. However, it will be demonstrated that this mechanism is not universal, or even common, to other boundaries exhibiting non-thermally activated motion. This work concludes that no single atomic motion mechanism is sufficient to explain the existence of non-thermally activated boundary motion.

Grain boundary engineered materials are of immense interest for their resistance to hydrogen embrittlement. This work builds on the work undertaken in Part I on the thermodynamic stability and structure of misoriented grain boundaries vicinal to the Σ3 (111) <11¯0> (coherent-twin) boundary to examine hydrogen segregation to those boundaries. The segregation of hydrogen reflects the asymmetry of the boundary structure with the sense of rotation of the grains about the coherent-twin boundary, and the temperature-dependent structural transition present in one sense of misorientation. This work also finds that the presence of hydrogen affects a change in structure of the boundaries with increasing concentration. The structural change effects only one sense of misorientation and results in the reduction in length of the emitted stacking faults. Moreover, the structural change results in the generation of occupied sites populated by more strongly bound hydrogen. The improved understanding of misoriented twin grain boundary structure and the effect on hydrogen segregation resulting from this work is relevant to higher length-scale models. To that end, we examine commonly used metrics such as free volume and atomic stress at the boundary. In conclusion, free volume is found not to be useful as a surrogate for predicting the degree of hydrogen segregation, whereas the volumetric virial stress reliably predicts the locations of hydrogen segregation and exclusion at concentrations below saturation or the point where structural changes are induced by increasing hydrogen concentration.

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Here, grain boundary-engineered materials are of immense interest for their corrosion resistance, fracture resistance and microstructural stability. This work contributes to a larger goal of understanding both the structure and thermodynamic properties of grain boundaries vicinal (within ±30°) to the Σ3(1 1 1) <1 1¯0> (coherent twin) boundary which is found in grain boundary-engineered materials. The misoriented boundaries vicinal to the twin show structural changes at elevated temperatures. In the case of nickel, this transition temperature is substantially below the melting point and at temperatures commonly reached during processing, making the existence of such boundaries very likely in applications. Thus, the thermodynamic stability of such features is thoroughly investigated in order to predict and fully understand the structure of boundaries vicinal to twins. Low misorientation angle grain boundaries (|θ| ≲ 16°) show distinct ±1/3(1 1 1) disconnections which accommodate misorientation in opposite senses. The two types of disconnection have differing low-temperature structures which show different temperature-dependent behaviours with one type undergoing a structural transition at approximately 600 K. At misorientation angles greater than approximately ±16°, the discrete disconnection nature is lost as the disconnections merge into one another. Free energy calculations demonstrate that these high-angle boundaries, which exhibit a transition from a planar to a faceted structure, are thermodynamically more stable in the faceted configuration.

Displacement damage caused by ions or neutrons in microelectronic devices can have significant effect on the performance of these devices. Therefore, it is important to predict not only the displacement damage profile, but also its magnitude precisely. Analytical methods and binary collision approximation codes working with amorphous targets use the concept of displacement energy, the energy that a lattice atom has to receive to create a permanent replacement. It was found that this "displacement energy" is direction dependent; it can range from 12 to 32 eV in silicon. Obviously, this model fails in BCA codes that work with crystalline targets, such as Marlowe. Marlowe does not use displacement energy; instead, it uses lattice binding energy only and then pairs the interstitial atoms with vacancies. Then based on the configuration of the Frenkel pairs it classifies them as close, near, or distant pairs, and considers the distant pairs the permanent replacements. Unfortunately, this separation is an ad hoc assumption, and the results do not agree with molecular dynamics calculations. After irradiation, there is a prompt recombination of interstitials and vacancies if they are nearby, within a recombination radius. In order to implement this recombination radius in Marlowe, we used the comparison of MD and Marlowe calculation in a range of ion energies in single crystal silicon target. The calculations showed that a single recombination radius of ∼7.4 Å in Marlowe for a range of ion energies gives an excellent agreement with MD.

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The formation of He bubbles in erbium tritides is a significant process in the aging of these materials. Due to the long-standing uncertainty about the initial nucleation process of these bubbles, there is interest in mechanisms that can lead to the localization of He in erbium hydrides. Previous work has been unable to identify nucleation sites in homogeneous erbium hydride. This work builds on the experimental observation that erbium hydrides have nano- scale erbium oxide precipitates due to the high thermodynamic stability of erbium oxide and the ubiquitous presence of oxygen during materials processing. Fundamental DFT calculations indicate that the He is energetically favored in the oxide relative to the bulk hydride. Activation energies for the motion of He in the oxide and at the oxide-hydride interface indicate that trapping is kinetically feasible. A simple kinetic Monte Carlo model is developed that demonstrates the degree of trapping of He as a function of temperature and oxide fraction.

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Nanostructuring has been proposed as a method to enhance radiation tolerance, but many metallic systems are rejected due to significant concerns regarding long term grain boundary and interface stability. This work utilized recent advancements in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to quantitatively characterize the grain size, texture, and individual grain boundary character in a nanocrystalline gold model system before and after in situ TEM ion irradiation with 10 MeV Si. The initial experimental measurements were fed into a mesoscale phase field model, which incorporates the role of irradiation-induced thermal events on boundary properties, to directly compare the observed and simulated grain growth with varied parameters. The observed microstructure evolution deviated subtly from previously reported normal grain growth in which some boundaries remained essentially static. In broader terms, the combined experimental and modeling techniques presented herein provide future avenues to enhance quantification and prediction of the thermal, mechanical, or radiation stability of grain boundaries in nanostructured crystalline systems.

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