CHAPTER XI – Growth of Phases: Diffusion or Interface Reaction Control

This chapter illustrates motion of a planar interface, between two terminal phases of a binary system having or not having stable intermediate phases in the phase diagram for the system or between a supersaturated or supercooled parent phase and a product phase. For a multicomponent system, this motion involves the coupling between an interface reaction and diffusion. An important factor in this coupling of atom transport to and from an interface and the interface reaction is the stress developed ahead of the moving interface due to a gradient of composition. Most theories of moving interface processes don't include stress as a factor. In many of these processes, non-equilibrium thermodynamics contributes a formalism that is often useful in defining the relations between parameters. The chapter present relations for the interface velocity and defines the transition between these two controlling regimes. Furthermore, briefly considers the processes of physical vapor deposition (PVD), chemical vapor deposition (CVD), Ostwald ripening, and sintering.