Defect Equilibration During Interdiffusion

Let us finally estimate the relaxation times of homogeneous defect reactions. To this end, we analyze the equilibration course of a silver halide crystal, AX, with predominantly intrinsic cation Frenkel disorder. The Frenkel reaction is 

When the point defect relaxation is diffusion controlled, we can use Eqn. (5.89) to determine k. After setting rAB = aAX (= unit cell dimension), it is found that at even moderate temperatures (= 100°C), x is on the order of a millisecond or less. This r is many orders of magnitude shorter than relaxation times for nonstoichiometric compounds where the point defect pairs equilibrate at external surfaces (Section 5.3.2). In other words, intrinsic defects equilibrate much faster than extrinsic defects if, during the defect equilibration, the number of lattice sites is conserved. 

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The Kirkendall effect in metals shows that during interdiffusion, the relaxation time for local defect equilibration is often sufficiently short (compared to the characteristic time of macroscopic component transport) to justify the assumption of local point defect equilibrium. In those cases, the (isothermal, isobaric) transport coefficients (e.g., Dh bj) are functions only of composition. Those quantitative methods introduced in Section 4.3.3 which have been worked out for multicomponent diffusion can then be applied. 

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