Sedimentation of substitutional solute atoms in In-Pb system alloy under strong gravitational field; Experiments and simulations

Ono, Masao  ; Kinoshita, Takahiro*; Ueno, Hideto*; Huang, X.*; Osakabe, Toyotaka  ; Mashimo, Tsutomu

Ultracentrifuge experiments were performed on the In-Pb system to study the sedimentation of atoms and phase equilibrium. After the experiments, the graded structures were obtained. Pb-rich phase (f.c.c) and In-rich phase (tetragonal) appeared at the strong- and weak-gravitational field sides of the sample, respectively, from starting state of -phase. And, the continuous changes in lattice parameters were observed in each phase. These observation results showed that the graded structure was continuous in atomic scale, and was formed by the sedimentation of atoms. Composition profiles of the centrifuged samples for 31.3 h, 60 h and 150 h showed that the composition change reached the steady state within 60 hours. The diffusion coefficient for sedimentation was estimated to be about 8 times larger than that for usual diffusion by the simulation. The result indicated that the diffusion mechanism of the sedimentation was different from the conventional ones.