Self-diffusion and solute diffusion in alloys under irradiation: Influence of ballistic jumps

Abstract

We have studied the influence of ballistic jumps on thermal and total diffusion of solvent and solute atoms in dilute fcc alloys under irradiation. For the diffusion components that result from vacancy migration, we introduce generalized five-frequency models, and show that ballistic jumps produce decorrelation effects that have a moderate impact on self-diffusion but that can enhance or suppress solute diffusion by several orders of magnitude. These could lead to new irradiation-induced transformations, especially in the case of subthreshold irradiation conditions. We also show that the mutual influence of thermal and ballistic jumps results in a nonadditivity of partial diffusion coefficients: the total diffusion coefficient under irradiation may be less than the sum of the thermal and ballistic diffusion coefficients. These predictions are confirmed by kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, it is shown that the method introduced here can be extended to take into account the effect of ballistic jumps on the diffusion of dumbbell interstitials in dilute alloys.