Tatsuji Furuse

Diffusion of copper, aluminum and boron in nickel

Secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) is a valuable technique for analyzing the distributions of solutes which diffused from the surface to the interior side of metals. The high resolution of SIMS can determine small diffusion coefficients below 10[sup [minus]12] cm[sup 2]/s observed at low temperature, and also measure the diffusion coefficients of various solutes including aluminum and boron isotopes which are not easily available. By means of a radioactive tracer technique, the diffusion coefficients of various solutes in nickel have been measured only at temperature higher than 0.7T[sub m], where T[sub m] is the melting temperature of nickel. With the benefit of SIMS, the present paper investigates the diffusion coefficients of copper, aluminum and boron in the blocks and the melt-spun ribbons of nickel from 0.7T[sub m] to 0.36T[sub m].