Part IV – April 1969 - Papers - Preprecipitation in the Au-Ni System

Aging of specimens of Au-20 at. pct Ni and Au-40 at. pct Ni has been followed with electron microscopy, resistance, magnetic measurements, and X-ray diffraction. The periodic structures observed by electron microscopy in Au-Ni alloys by Fisher and Embury are shown to be due to nickel-rich prepre-cipitates. Assuming this alloy system undergoes spinodal decomposition, our observations and available data on thermodynamic properties and elastic constants indicate that the gradient energy coefficient in this system is of the order of 10-5 ergs cm-1 . Shifts of X-ray peaks in this system have been found to be due primarily to residual stresses, not faulting. A large effect of applied stress during aging was detected by X-rays and electron microscopy for the Au-20 at. pct Ni alloy. The presence of a preprecipitation stage during aging of gold-rich Au-Ni alloys for short times below 300°C has been indicated by several previous investigations. Changes in electrical resistivity,1"3 elastic modulus,4 superparamagnetisrn,5 positions of X-ray diffraction peaks,6 and hardness7 have been studied. Electron diffraction and microscopic studies by Fukano8 and Fisher and Embury9 respectively showed that the precipitation process resulted in the formation of periodic composition fluctuations—perhaps spinodal decomposition. MOSS10 detected a satellite with X-rays in quenched specimens, but the wavelength was much smallerthan that found by Fukano. Recently Woodilla and Averbac11 detected a modulation similar to that found by Moss, but with electron diffraction. They suggested that the microstructures observed by Fisher and Embury may be simply due to a Moir'e effect from a back deposit of gold during electropolishing. Satellites in electron diffraction can be enhanced by small bends or tilts of a foil. Even if this were not the case, asymmetric satellites, as are found in Au-Ni are difficult to analyze. They are principally influenced by the large differences in atomic size in this system, and obtaining information on the associated composition fluctuations depends on assumptions as to whether or not there are isolated clusters or composition "waves", and in the latter case whether or not the entire specimen has decomposed. Assuming that decomposition was complete in alloys aged at low temperatures, Woodilla and Averbach suggested that the satellites indicated a composition which varied about the average value by only± 5 pct, much less than that predicted from the phase limits, Fig. 1; they attributed this small variation to a cessation of the reaction caused by the loss of mobile vacancies. In Ref. 12 it was shown that vacancies are trapped by the preprecipitate in this system. Furthermore, after reversion, aging proceeds at a much slower rate than immediately after a quench from the solution temperature,5'11,13 indicating the importance of vacancies in the kinetics. In some senses Au-Ni is a favorable system for studying preprecipitation and reversion mechanisms because of the simplicity of the equilibrium diagram14 and the availability of good thermodynamic15 and diffusion data.16,l7 The calculations necessary to relate the decomposition process to classical nucleation and growth or to spinodal decomposition, as well as those necessary for understanding reversion mechanisms, can, therefore, be made. As an example, the position of the chemical spinodal, calculated from the thermo-dynamic data of Sellars and Maak15 with the method described by Rundman and Hilliard,18 is included in Fig. 1. It is compared to the chemical spinodal calculated from the equilibrium miscibility gap by Cook and Hilliard's method.l9 Included is the coherent spinodal suggested by Golding and MOSS," using measured elastic constants for their calculations and the same ther-modynamic data. The spinodal estimated by Woodilla and Averbach,11 by determining the temperature limits for the observation of the satellites discussed above, is also given. Actually this last curve is open to question on the following grounds: As a phase boundary is approached the spacing of particles or the wavelength