Kinetics of spinodal decomposition in driven nanocrystalline alloys

The effect of grain boundaries (GB) on decomposition of solid solution was investigated in the framework generalized lattice gas model taking into account both local variation of chemical potential and the diffusion mobility near GB. It was shown that nonequilibrium GB can essentially change the phase equilibrium of alloy and surface directed spinodal decomposition (SDSD) caused by GB determines the precipitation morphology in nanograined materials. The increase of atomic mobility near GB can result in formation of lamellar structure propagating from GB to inside the grains and variation in morphology from lamellar to drop-like type structure when composition change. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.