Mean field theories for the description of diffusion and phase transformations controlled by diffusion†
Abstract
A self-consistent mean field (SCMF) theory starting from an atomic diffusion model can predict most of the correlation effects induced by the vacancy diffusion mechanism while being coherent with thermodynamics. For that purpose a time dependent effective Hamiltonian is introduced into the non-equilibrium distribution function. Such effective Hamiltonian makes a new hierarchy of approximations to appear in parallel to the thermodynamic mean-field approximations. We explain how each level of approximation is related to correlation effects and how kinetics of phase transformation results from both thermodynamics and diffusion properties. A first example is the radiation induced segregation (