Phase diagram diffusion couple technique

From an economic viewpoint, the classical determination of alloy phase diagrams is a laborious process, involving alloy preparation and heat treatment, compositional, structural, and microstructural analysis (and, even then, not yielding reliable phase boundary information at low temperatures due to kinetic limitations). While this investment is justified for alloys of major technical importance, the need for better economics has driven an effort to use alternative methods of phase discovery such as multiple source, gradient vapor deposition or sputter deposition followed by automated analysis alternatively, multicomponent diffusion couples are used to map binary or ternary alloy systems structurally and by properties (see Section 6). These techniques have been known for decades, but they have been reintroduced more recently as high-efficiency methodologies to create compositional libraries by a combinatorial approach, inspired perhaps by the recent, general introduction of combinatorial methods in chemistry. 

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