Calculation of enhancement factors for solute diffusion in the fcc dilute random alloy

Abstract

In this paper, we address the enhancement of solute diffusion by solute addition. We focus on the little studied kinetic effect leading to solute enhancement arising from the kinetics of the encounter of a solute atom with a vacancy in the presence of other solute atoms. The study complements an earlier study by two of the present authors of the enhancement of the solvent diffusivity. In the present paper, the fcc random alloy model is employed at the dilute limit. We employ Monte Carlo techniques to calculate the solute diffusion enhancement factors B ₁ and B ₂. Solute correlation factors, upon which the enhancement factors rely in this model, are calculated to a very high precision using long runs and averaging over a very large number of atoms. There is fair agreement with the kinetic treatments of Manning and of Holdsworth and Elliott, and excellent agreement with the self-consistent theory of Moleko et al.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the Australian Research Council (Large Grants and Discovery Project Grants Schemes) for its support of this work. One of us (I.V.B.) wishes to thank the Australian Research Council for the award of a Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship.