1. Preferential composition during nucleation and growth in multi-principal element alloys.
- Author
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Mishra, Saswat and Strachan, Alejandro
- Subjects
- *
DISCONTINUOUS precipitation , *ALLOYS , *HOMOGENEOUS nucleation , *PHASE separation , *POLYMER melting , *MOLECULAR dynamics , *CRYSTALLIZATION - Abstract
The crystallization of complex, concentrated alloys can result in atomic-level short-range order, composition gradients, and phase separation. These features govern the properties of the resulting alloy. While nucleation and growth in single-element metals are well understood, several open questions remain regarding the crystallization of multi-principal component alloys. We use molecular dynamics to model the crystallization of a five-element, equiatomic alloy modeled after CoCrCuFeNi upon cooling from the melt. Stochastic, homogeneous nucleation results in nuclei with a biased composition distribution, rich in Fe and Co. This deviation from the random sampling of the overall composition is driven by the internal energy and affects nuclei of a wide range of sizes, from tens of atoms all the way to super-critical sizes. This results in short-range order and compositional gradients at nanometer scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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