Interdiffusion data in multicomponent alloys as a source of quantitative fundamental diffusion information

Tracer diffusion experiments have historically furnished much of the information about fundamental diffusion processes as embodied in such quantities as tracer correlation factors and vacancy-atom exchange frequencies. As tracer diffusion experiments using radiotracers are rather less often performed nowadays, it is important to be able to process other diffusion data to provide similar fundamental information. New procedures that are primarily based around the random alloy model have been established recently for analyzing chemical diffusion data in binary and ternary alloy systems. These procedures are reviewed here. First, we review the random alloy model, the Sum-rule relating the phenomenological coefficients and three diffusion kinetics formalisms making use of the random alloy. Next, we show how atom-vacancy exchange frequency ratios and then component tracer correlation factors can be extracted from chemical diffusion data in alloy systems. Examples are taken from intrinsic diffusion and interdiffusion data in a number of binary and ternary alloys.