Inter-Diffusion of Metals

Abstract

WE have recently applied high precision X-ray analysis to the study of the inter-diffusion of two metals in the solid state. Although the experimental work so far has been confined to mixtures of copper and zinc particles (heated in vacuo), enough data have been obtained to show that this new method has distinct advantages over the methods hitherto employed, and that it admits of wide application. Its two principal features are: (a) the direct measurement of a fundamental quantity, namely, lattice parameter (or mean atomic volume), while, in other methods employed to study this phenomenon, mean values of such quantities as chemical composition, width of zones, electric resistance, thermoelectric effect have been determined; and (b) each phase present at any time gives its own X-ray reflection lines independently, from which its composition can be readily found from standard composition-parameter curves.