Time resolved small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) using synchrotron radiation was applied to the study of the kinetics of spinodal decomposition (SD) in an AlZn binary alloy at critical composition quenched into the immiscible region. These millisecond time scale measurements, performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source (Brookhaven National Labs., N.Y.), constitute the first direct experimental verification in a binary alloy of the theory proposed by Langer, Bar-on and Miller in 1975 for SD. A scheme based on the composition distribution functional is proposed to account for the decomposition taking place during the quench. The interatomic mobility, a free energy gradient coefficient and two coefficients that suffice to determine a coarse-grained (intensive) free energy have been obtained in the framework of this theory. The mobilities obtained compare well with tracer diffusion measurements reported in literature. A dependence of the coarse-grained free energy coefficients on the coarse-graining length is found and a procedure is proposed to uniquely choose the values of these coefficients based on the predicted integrated intensity from the equilibrium concentrations and on the measured integrated intensities. / Late-stage coarsening regimes were also investigated. In these regimes, growth exponents higher than the value 1/3 predicted by the Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner theory are obtained. These higher values, comprised between 0.40 and 0.45 are consistent with predictions that alloys in which elastic effects are important can present a transition regime from a $t sp{1/3}$ growth law to a $t sp{1/2}$ law. The structure factors do not quite scale. They also present a shoulder at high wavevectors, a feature not reported before in metallic alloys.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.39334 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Mainville, Jacques |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Physics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001284817, proquestno: NN74828, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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