Planar diffusion

Figure 18.2 (a) Composition and (b) order variations across diffuse, planar interfaces. 

Diffusion may be defined as the movement of a species due to a concentration gradient, which seeks to maximize entropy by overcoming inhomogeneities within a system. The rate of diffusion of a species, the flux, at a given point in solution is dependent upon the concentration gradient at that particular point and was first described by Pick in 1855, who considered the simple case of linear difflision to a planar surface ... 

Microelectrodes with several geometries are reported in the literature, from spherical to disc to line electrodes each geometry has its own critical characteristic dimension and diffusion field in the steady state. The difhisional flux to a spherical microelectrode surface may be regarded as planar at short times, therefore displaying a transient behaviour, but spherical at long times, displaying a steady-state behaviour [28, 34] - If a... 

If the diffusion coefficient of species A is less tlian tliat of B (D < D ) tlie propagating front will be planar. However, if is sufficiently greater than tire planar front will become unstable to transverse perturbations and chaotic front motion will ensue. To understand tire origin of tire mechanism of tire planar front destabilization consider tire following suppose tire interface is slightly non-planar. We would like to know if tire dynamics will tend to eliminate this non-planarity or accentuate it. LetZ)g The situation is depicted schematically in figure... 

C3.6.13 where large diffusion fluxes are indicated by —> and smaller diffusion fluxes by —+. For tire part of tire B front tliat protmdes into tire A region, fast diffusion of B leads to dispersal of B and suppresses tire autocatalytic reaction tliat requires two molecules of B. The front will have difficulty advancing here. In tire region where A protmdes into B, A will react leading to advancement of tire front. The net effect is to remove any initial nonplanarity and give rise to a planar front. 

Materials made of siHcon nitride, siHcon oxynitride, or sialon-bonded siHcon carbide have high thermal shock and corrosion resistance and may be used for pump parts, acid spray nozzles, and in aluminum reduction ceUs (156—159). A very porous siHcon carbide foam has been considered for surface combustion burner plates and filter media. It can also be used as a substrate carrying materials such as boron nitride as planar diffusion source for semiconductor doping appHcations. 

Eddy diffusion as a transport mechanism dominates turbulent flow at a planar electrode ia a duct. Close to the electrode, however, transport is by diffusion across a laminar sublayer. Because this sublayer is much thinner than the layer under laminar flow, higher mass-transfer rates under turbulent conditions result. Assuming an essentially constant reactant concentration, the limiting current under turbulent flow is expected to be iadependent of distance ia the direction of electrolyte flow. 

A situation which is frequently encountered in tire production of microelectronic devices is when vapour deposition must be made into a re-entrant cavity in an otherwise planar surface. Clearly, the gas velocity of the major transporting gas must be reduced in the gas phase entering the cavity, and transport down tire cavity will be mainly by diffusion. If the mainstream gas velocity is high, there exists the possibility of turbulent flow at tire mouth of tire cavity, but since this is rare in vapour deposition processes, the assumption that the gas widrin dre cavity is stagnant is a good approximation. The appropriate solution of dre diffusion equation for the steady-state transport of material tlrrough the stagnant layer in dre cavity is... 

When the two liquid phases are in relative motion, the mass transfer coefficients in eidrer phase must be related to die dynamical properties of the liquids. The boundary layer thicknesses are related to the Reynolds number, and the diffusive Uansfer to the Schmidt number. Another complication is that such a boundaty cannot in many circumstances be regarded as a simple planar interface, but eddies of material are U ansported to the interface from the bulk of each liquid which change the concenuation profile normal to the interface. In the simple isothermal model there is no need to take account of this fact, but in most indusuial chcumstances the two liquids are not in an isothermal system, but in one in which there is a temperature gradient. The simple stationary mass U ansfer model must therefore be replaced by an eddy mass U ansfer which takes account of this surface replenishment. 

Diffusion in the bulk crystals may sometimes be short circuited by diffusion down grain boundaries or dislocation cores. The boundary acts as a planar channel, about two atoms wide, with a local diffusion rate which can be as much as 10 times greater than in the bulk (Figs. 18.8 and 10.4). The dislocation core, too, can act as a high conductivity wire of cross-section about (2b), where b is the atom size (Fig. 18.9). Of course, their contribution to the total diffusive flux depends also on how many grain boundaries or dislocations there are when grains are small or dislocations numerous, their contribution becomes important. 

A planar polished surface reflects heat radiation in a similar manner with which it reflects light. Rough surfaces reflect energy in a diffuse manner hence radiation is reflected in all directions. A blackbody absorbs all incoming radiation and therefore has no reflection. A perfect blackbody does not exist a near perfect blackbody surface such as soot reflects 5% of the radiation, making it the standard for an ideal radiator. 

The maintenance of product formation, after loss of direct contact between reactants by the interposition of a layer of product, requires the mobility of at least one component and rates are often controlled by diffusion of one or more reactant across the barrier constituted by the product layer. Reaction rates of such processes are characteristically strongly deceleratory since nucleation is effectively instantaneous and the rate of product formation is determined by bulk diffusion from one interface to another across a product zone of progressively increasing thickness. Rate measurements can be simplified by preparation of the reactant in a controlled geometric shape, such as pressing together flat discs at a common planar surface that then constitutes the initial reaction interface. Control by diffusion in one dimension results in obedience to the... 

Diffusion at Microelectrodes The total diffusion-limited current is composed of the planar flux and radial flux diffusion components ... 

When rfc = 0, the polymeric structure is considered to be open enough (i = 0) that any subsequent oxidation will not occur under conformational relaxation control, hence P = 1. Every polymeric chain at the poly-mer/solution interface acts as a nucleus a planar oxidation front is formed that advances from the solution interface toward the metal/polymer interface at the diffusion rate. 

Figure 13.1. Cross-section of 0.5 triple-level integrated circuit (IC) with spin-on-glass planarization and Ti/TiN diffusion barrier.

For instance, doped phosphosilicate glasses used in planarization cannot be heated above their flow temperature of 725°C. Likewise, after a layer of aluminum is deposited, subsequent temperatures cannot exceed 380°C because spiking and the formation of hillocks would occur rapidly (see diffusion barrier in the following chapter). The factor of time at a given temperature is just as important, as it will influence phenomena, such as diffusion and dissolution. In the planning of a CVD process, the sequence of events and the thermal budget are essential considerations. 

Real-life premixed flame fronts are rarely planar. Of course, if the flow is turbulent, gas motion will continuously deform and modify the geometry of the flame front, see Chapter 7. However, even when a flame propagates in a quiescent mixture, the front rapidly becomes structured. In this chapter, we will discuss hydrodynamic flame instability, thermo-diffusive instability, and thermo-acoushc instability. 

The attractive feature of LADM Is that once the fluid structure Is known (e.g., by solution of the YBG equations given In the previous section or by a computer simulation) then theoretical or empirical formulas for the transport coefficients of homogeneous fluids can be used to predict flow and transport In Inhomogeneous fluid. For diffusion and Couette flow In planar pores LADM turns out to be a surprisingly good approximation, as will be shown In a later section. 

Warach S, Gaa J, Siewert B, Wielopolski P, Edelman RR. Acute human stroke studied by whole brain echo planar diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. Ann Neurol 1995 37 231-241. 

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