The Harrison diffusion kinetics regimes in grain boundary diffusion: Lattice Monte Carlo Modelling of the effect of segregation

The location of the transition points for the three main Harrison’s kinetics regimes (Type-A, B and C) for the measurement of grain boundary diffusivities from tracer concentration depth profiles (self-diffusion) has been extensively studied in (Divinski et al. Zeit. Metallk, 2002, Belova and Murch, Phil. Mag, 2001, 2009; Defect and Diffusion Forum, 2006, 2008, 2009) by making use of the phenomenological Lattice Monte Carlo numerical method. Those locations are mainly dependent on the dimensionality of the problem. For the case of impurity grain boundary diffusion, the segregation effect is very important. In the present study, the influence of segregation on the transition points is investigated for the parallel slab model (2-dimensional) of the grain boundary diffusion problem by making use of the tracer-type solution to the equivalent diffusion problem. It is shown that the Type-B regime is most likely not realized for the cases of fine-grain material with a strong segregation effect present.