Kinetics of the diffusion of an impurity atom on a square lattice

Abstract

An analytical study of the migration of an embedded impurity atom over a solid surface under the influence of the diffusion of vacancies is presented. The case of small surface coverages of both vacancies ϑv and impurity atoms ϑi, with ϑi ≪ ϑv ≪ 1, is considered. It is shown that the realization of multiple collisions of a single impurity atom with vacancies imparts a Brownian character to its motion. At long times, the dependence of the mean square displacement on the time differs little from the linear, whereas the spatial density distribution is close to the Gaussian, features that makes it possible to introduce a diffusion coefficient. For the latter, an analytical expression is derived, which differs from the product of the diffusion coefficient of vacancies and their relative concentration only by a numerical factor η. The dependence of the diffusion coefficient of an impurity atom on the ratio of the frequency of its jumps to the frequency of jumps of vacancies is analyzed. In the kinetic mode, at ω ≪ 1, the diffusion coefficient of impurity atoms depends linearly on ω, whereas at ω ≫ 1, a saturation is observed; i.e., the dependence on the frequency of jumps of the impurity atom disappears. Nevertheless, the value of η remains less than unity, and no total entrainment of impurity atoms with vacancies occurs.