On the interfacial energy of coherent interfaces

A thermodynamic model has been developed for interfacial energies of coherent interfaces using only the molar Gibbs energy and the molar volume of the two phases surrounding the interface as the initial data. The analysis is started from the simplest case of the interface formed by two solutions on the two sides of a miscibility gap, when both phases are described by the same Gibbs energy and molar volume functions. This method is applied to the fcc Au–Ni, liquid Ga–Pb and liquid Al–Bi systems. Reasonable agreement was found with the measured values in liquid Ga–Pb and Al–Bi systems. It was shown that the calculated results are sensitive to the choice of the Calphad-estimated thermodynamic data. The method is extended to the case where the two phases are described by different Gibbs energy and molar volume functions. The extended model is applied to the interface present in an Ni-based superalloy between the AlNi₃ face-centered cubic (fcc) compound and the Ni–Al fcc disordered solid solution. The calculated results are found to be similar to other values recently obtained from the combination of kinetic and thermodynamic data. The method is extended to ternary and higher order systems. It is predicted that the interfacial energy will gradually decrease with the increase in number of components in the system.