Point-defect interactions in solids

STATISTICAL MECHANICS OF POINT-DEFECT INTERACTIONS IN SOLIDS... 

Statistical Mechanics of Point-Defect Interactions in Solids... 

A. R. Allnatt, Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics. Statistical Mechanics of Point-defect Interaction in Solids , Advances in Chemical Physics, vol. XI, ed. I. Prigogine, J. Wiley and Sons, New York, 1967. 

These effects can all be enhanced if the point defects interact to form defect clusters or similar structures, as in Fej xO above or U02, (Section 4.4). Such clusters can suppress phase changes at low temperatures. Under circumstances in which the clusters dissociate, such as those found in solid oxide fuel cells, the volume change can be considerable, leading to failure of the component. 

Postnikov, V.S., Pavlov, V.S., and Turkov, S.K. (1970) Internal friction in ferroelectrics due to interaction of domain boundaries and point defects./. Phys. Chem. Solids, 31, 1785-1791. 

Charged defects in solids can interact with one another in an analogous way to the interactions between ions (or between ions and electrons) in a solution. In the solid-state situation, the crystal may be viewed as a neutral medium into which the charged defects are dissolved. This similarity between solution chemical interactions and defect interactions in the solid state has resulted in the field of defect chemistry, which provides basic methods for studying the effects of point defects in solids. The methods are normally applicable to fairly low defect concentrations. Generally, a broad distinction is made between intrinsic defects that are thermally gena-ated in pure compounds and extrinsic defects produced by external influences such as impurities and gaseous atmospheres. References 2 and 3 provide a detailed discussion of point defects and defect chemistry in metal oxides. 

Two German physical chemists, W. Sehottky and C. Wagner, founded this branch of materials seience. The story is very clearly set out in a biographical memoir of Carl Wagner (1901 1977) by another pioneer solid-state chemist, Hermann Schmalzried (1991), and also in Wagner s own survey of point defects and their interaction (Wagner 1977) - his last publieation. Sehottky we have already briefly met in connection with the Pohl school s study of colour centres... 

This article is concerned with the statistical mechanics of interactions between point defects in solids at thermodynamic equilibrium. The review is made entirely from the point of view of the... 

The preceding paragraphs illustrate that analogies between point defects in a crystal and solute molecules in a solution have been used previously but in a fairly elementary way. However, the implications of the existence of such analogies in the formulation of the statistical mechanics of interacting defects has not been considered in detail apart from an early paper by Mayer,69 who was interested primarily in the relation of defect interactions, to the solid-liquid phase transition in crystals with short-range forces. The... 

Another defect problem to which the ion-pair theory of electrolyte solutions has been applied is that of interactions to acceptor and donor impurities in solid solution in germanium and silicon. Reiss73>74 pointed out certain difficulties in the Fuoss formulation. His kinetic approach to the problem gave results numerically very similar to that of the Fuoss theory. A novel aspect of this method was that the negative ions were treated as randomly distributed but immobile while the positive ions could move freely. 

The usefulness of quadrupolar effects on the nuclear magnetic resonance c I 7 yi nuclei in the defect solid state arises from the fact that point defects, dislocations, etc., give rise to electric field gradients, which in cubic ciystals produce a large effect on the nuclear resonance line. In noncubic crystals defects of course produce an effect, but it may be masked by the already present quadrupole interaction. Considerable experimental data have been obtained by Reif (96,97) on the NMR of nuclei in doped, cubic, polycrystalline solids. The effect of defect-producing impurities is quite... 

The importance of interactions amongst point defects, at even fairly low defect concentrations, was recognized several years ago. Although one has to take into account the actual defect structure and modifications of short-range order to be able to describe the properties of solids fully, it has been found useful to represent all the processes involved in the intrinsic defect equilibria in a crystal (with a low concentration of defects), as well as its equilibrium with its external environment, by a set of coupled quasichemical reactions. These equilibrium reactions are then handled by the law of mass action. The free energy and equilibrium constants for each process can be obtained if we know the enthalpies and entropies of the reactions from theory or... 

There is increasing experimental evidence for the superlattice ordering of vacant sites or interstitial atoms as a result of interactions between them. Superlattice ordering of point defects has been found in metal halides, oxides, sulphides, carbides and other systems, and the relation between such ordering and nonstoichiometry has been reviewed extensively (Anderson, 1974, 1984 Anderson Tilley, 1974). Superlattice ordering of point defects is also found in alloys and in some intermetallic compounds (Gleiter, 1983). We shall examine the features of some typical systems to illustrate this phenomenon, which has minimized the relevance of isolated point defects in many of the chemically interesting solids. 

The resulting equilibrium concentrations of these point defects (vacancies and interstitials) are the consequence of a compromise between the ordering interaction energy and the entropy contribution of disorder (point defects, in this case). To be sure, the importance of Frenkel s basic work for the further development of solid state kinetics can hardly be overstated. From here on one knew that, in a crystal, the concentration of irregular structure elements (in thermal equilibrium) is a function of state. Therefore the conductivity of an ionic crystal, for example, which is caused by mobile, point defects, is a well defined physical property. However, contributions to the conductivity due to dislocations, grain boundaries, and other non-equilibrium defects can sometimes be quite significant. 

In the case of nonideal solid solutions, the vacancies (or other point defects) by necessity interact differently with components A and B in their immediate surroundings. Therefore, the alloy composition near a vacancy differs from the bulk composition Nb. This is analogous to the problem of energies and concentrations of gas atoms dissolved in alloys under a given gas vapor pressure [H. Schmalzried, A. Navrotsky (1975)]. Let us briefly indicate the approach to its solution and transfer it to the formulations in defect thermodynamics. 

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