Diffusion-Governed-Asymmetric Growth of Amorphous Layer Under Solid-State Reaction in Ni-Zr Multilayers

Abstract

ABSTRACTA molecular-dynamics simulation with an n-body potential was performed to study solid-state amorphization in the Ni-Zr system upon annealing at medium temperatures ranging from 300 to 600 °C. The models for simulation were a Zr-Ni-Zr sandwich consisting of both hcp Zr and fcc Ni (001) atomic planes and a bilayer with a thin preset disordered interfacial layer, respectively, for revealing the detailed amorphization process and the growing kinetics of an amorphous layer upon solid-state reaction. Our simulation results demonstrated, for the first time, that the atomic process proceeded through first diffusion, then alloying and eventually amorphization. In other words, amorphization was controlled by a diffusion-limited reaction and the growth kinetics of the amorphous layer followed exactly a t1/2 law. Another interesting finding was that the growing speeds of the amorphous layer exhibited an asymmetric behavior, i.e. the amorphous layer extended faster towards Ni lattice than that directed to Zr side. Besides, it was also found that an initiation of amorphization upon annealing was dependent to the interfacial textures, i.e. amorphization could take place when the interfaces were composed of the more open atomic planes, whereas it was suppressed if the interfaces were constructed with the close-packed planes of both lattices.