Atomistic investigation of vacancy assisted diffusion mechanism in Mg ternary (Mg–RE–M) alloys

Abstract

To investigate the kinetics of the formation of solute cluster structures in some of the Mg ternary alloys, we perform a first-principles analysis of some fundamental quantities in doped Mg lattices. We calculate interaction energies between vacancy and solute atoms in both Mg hexagonal close packed (HCP) and face-centered cubic (FCC) crystal structures. In particular, we consider in this work Al, Gd, Y, and Zn solute atoms. Also, to understand the diffusion mechanism, we calculate vacancy-assisted diffusion for Mg and solute atoms in HCP and FCC lattices using the nudge elastic band method.