Characteristic features of diffusion induced grain boundary migration for Σ9 [110] asymmetric tilt boundaries in the Cu(Zn) system Original Research Article

The characteristic features of diffusion induced grain boundary migration (DIGM) in the Cu(Zn) system were experimentally studied for [110] asymmetric tilt boundaries using Cu bicrystals annealed at 693 K for various times by a capsule zincification technique. The experiment was carried out for the boundaries with inclination angles of φ=0, 20, 35, 55, 65 and 90° and with a constant misorientation angle of θ=39° (Σ9). During annealing, the grain boundary migrates towards a crystal grain of larger coherency strain energy with higher probability due to DIGM. Taking elastic anisotropy of each crystal grain into consideration, the difference between the probabilities of grain boundary migration towards both side grains can be accounted for by the coherency strain model proposed by Hillert. The migration rate v of the moving boundary is almost constant regardless of the annealing time t between t=72 and 384 h (2.59×105 and 1.38×106 s). The value of v monotonically decreases with increasing inclination angle. This implies that the boundary diffusion coefficient of Zn in Cu is a monotone decreasing function of the inclination angle. The experimental results on the kinetics at the steady state stage were theoretically analyzed using the energy balance model proposed by Kajihara and Gust (Scripta mater., 1998, 38, 1621. The analysis indicates that the effective driving force ΔefG for the grain boundary migration is merely one-thirtieth of the chemical driving force, whereas it still remains three times greater than the minimum value corresponding to the coherency strain energy during DIGM under the present experimental conditions. The mobility of the moving boundary was evaluated to be M=3.77×10−17 m4/Js from the values of v and ΔefG according to the relationship M=v/ΔefG. This value of M is close to the results estimated by Yamamoto et al. (Acta mater., 1999, 47, 1757) for the [100] twist and random boundaries in the Cu(Zn) system.