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Abstract This study uses high‐energy X‐ray diffraction microscopy of SrTiO3to identify correlations between grain boundary (GB) area changes and the motion direction of neighboring GBs to investigate interfacial energy minimization mechanisms during grain growth. The local GB area changes were measured near triple lines (TLs) to isolate the effects of neighboring GBs. These area changes were then correlated to the migration direction and curvature of the neighboring GBs present at the TL, providing an alternative metric associated with lateral expansion for describing GB migration. Additionally, this study extracted GB dihedral angles, which reflect the relative GB energy, to test whether low energy GBs replace high energy GBs (i.e., GB replacement mechanism) and, thus, can be used to predict a GB's migration direction. The majority of GBs did not exhibit local area changes reflective of the GB replacement mechanism, and the dihedral angles were not reliable indicators of GB motion. However, the expansion and shrinkage of GBs moving away from their center of curvature was more often consistent with the grain boundary replacement mechanism. These results suggest that growth for certain GB configurations is governed by relative energy differences while others are governed by curvature.
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Plateau–Rayleigh instability with a grain boundary twist
We demonstrate using theoretical, computational, and experimental studies a morphological instability, in which a polycrystalline nanorod breaks up at grain boundaries (GBs) into an array of isolated domains. Our theoretical model is used to establish a neutral stability surface demarcating stable and unstable perturbations. It is shown that GBs play a destabilizing role in which the critical wavelength for the instability decreases with the increase in the GB energy. We carry out phase field simulations, which reveal accelerated pinch-off kinetics with the increase in the GB energy and predict temporal evolution of interfacial profiles in quantitative agreement with experimental observations.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2033327
- PAR ID:
- 10439897
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Institute of Physics
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Applied Physics Letters
- Volume:
- 121
- Issue:
- 14
- ISSN:
- 0003-6951
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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