MATE 152

Spring 2024

Interfaces in solids

Dr Shashi Agarwal
Mid term Date

a. Mid Term April 9, 2022 at 9.00AM

Bring a calculator and one sheet of notes

b. Spring Break: April 1- April 5

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General Surface Tension Questions

1. WHAT IS SURFACE TENSION

2. WHAT IS DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SURFACEE TENSION AND SURFACE ENERGY

3. UNITS OF SURFACE TENSION AND SURFACE ENRGY

4. FOLLOWING ARE VALUES FOR WATER, OIL. AND TEFLON AND SAPPHIRE. (NOT IN ORDER, GUESS MATERIAL ORDER)

A 72.2 mJ/m2.

B 20 mJ/m2

C. 638 mJ/m2

D. 19 mJ/m2

5. A CLEAN SURFACE HAS HIGHER OR LOWER SURFCE ENERGY THAN A DIRTY SURFACE
Lecture 12---Interfaces in Solids
• What is interface in solids: boundary separating differing crystalline, orientation or phase state
• Why study interfaces: Because phase transformations involve (create or transform) interfaces.
• Interfacial, or planar imperfections, in solids:

• free surfaces: Interfaces between solid and vapor,

• Loss of crystalanity and new surface formed
• Surface energy is associated with surfaces

• Grain Boundaries: Interfaces between two crystals or grains of the same phase where there is
an orientation difference in the atom arrangement across the interface;
NO CHANGE IN CRYSTAL STRUCTURE AND COMPOSITIION
Can be low angle (< 100) or high angle (>10 0 )

• Phase boundaries: Interfaces between different phases,

There is generally a change of chemical composition and atom
arrangement across the interface.
Surface Tension in Liquids: Pressure Inside a Drop

Work is required to increase radius from R to R+dR

Increased pressure inside a drop is called curvature or Laplace pressure

• Smaller drops have higher pressure than big drops. Champagne drops are
smaller than beer drops and are thus louder
Surface Energy
• Surface in solids generally refer to solid/vapor interface, a two-dimensional discontinuity in
the three dimensional material

• Key characteristic is that energy is associated with the interface, i.e., energy is
necessary to create a surface, affects shape and size of interface

• Surface energy is due to breaking of bonds to create a surface

Simple Model
If bond strength of metal is ε, each bond can be considered as lowering the
internal energy as ε/2, so if surface atom has three broken bonds, it has excess
internal energy 3ε/2 over the bulk

If a metal is vaporized, and Ls is latent heat of vaporization,

Ls= 12 Na ε/2 where Na is Avogadro number
surface energy = 0.25 Ls/ Na J/surface atom (if three bonds are missing )
( Ignores entropy term and second neighbors)
Surface Energy
• Surface energy is equal to work done to create a surface

we can write dW = Υ dA where Υ is surface energy so Υ is the energy that must

be applied to create dA new surface and Υ has unit J/m 2

So surface energy and surface tension are similar concept as surface tension is
the force applied per unit length with unit mN/m (more applicable to
liquids)

• Different crystal surfaces should have different values for Esv depending on the
number of broken bonds

• Surfaces with higher melting point have higher surface energy as bond energy is
higher

Water surface
• energy= 12 mJ/m2
Solid Surfaces
• Solid surfaces have energy dependent on bonding and atomic density
• Surfaces with fewer bonds broken will have lower energy
• A surface energy construct is Wulff representation with largest facets having
the lowest interfacial energy
Defects Review
Point Defects

Interstitials
Interstitials

Vacancy Interstitials Substitutional

Line Defects-- dislocations
Extra half plane of atoms included into the lattice
Edge Dislocations
Energy of dislocations

Length d of dislocation
Dislocation Motion and Material Deformation
Dislocations climb and glide
Grain Boundaries in A Single Phase material
• Structure of the grain boundary depends on the mis-orientation of
crystal grains
• Simplest GB structures are Tilt and twist GBs
Tilt Boundary: Rotation axis is parrallel to
boundary plane
Twist Boundary: Rotation axis is
perpendicular to boundary plane

• Low angle grain boundary---mis-orientation is small (θ= 10- 15 deg)

• High angle grain boundary: mis-orientaion is larger

• Boundary structure is more complicated.
• Larger region of disorder between grains
Small angle Grain Boundaries
• An array of edge dislocations with burger’s vector “b”
makes a tilt boundary—distortions are at the core of grain
boundaries

• If tilt angle is θ, distance between dislocations is

• Low angle twist boundary: set of screw dislocations

• Grain Boundary free energy depends on tilt angle—each

dislocation has energy associated
with it and Υ α θ

• In general, at θ > 100- 150 yb levels off known due to

dislocation aggregating too close to each other. These are
known as large angle grain boundaries.
• Typically Υb = 1/3 ΥSV
Twinning and Twin boundary (special case of high angle GBs)
• Twin Boundary happens when the crystals on either side of a plane are mirror
images of each other. The boundary between the twinned crystals may be a
single or few plane of atoms. There is no region of disorder and the boundary
atoms can be viewed as belonging to the crystal structures of both twins.
• High angle but lower energy
Twin Boundaries can be Coherent or incoherent
• Coherent Twin Boundary:
• Twin boundary is parallel to twin plane
• High angle grain boundary
• Very low ΥGB due to little mismatch

• Incoherent Twin Boundary

• Twin boundary and twin plane are not aligned
• Large ΥGB energy
Equilibrium in Polycrystalline Materials
• In general Polycrystalline material will contain twin boundaries, high angle and
low angle boundaries
• Energy associated with boundaries create GB tension and must balance
• Two grains meet in a plane, three grains meet in a line and four grains meet in a
corner
Grain Boundaries move (Thermally activated migration)--
• Cold worked state has dense tangled network of dislocations
• Heating a cold worked material has three stages
• Recovery or Polygannization
• Re-crystallization (new grains form with reduced dislocation density)
• Grain Growth (large grains have lower surface area)
Polyganization
The rearrangement of excess dislocations into low angle tilt boundaries
(misorientation of a few degrees) is called polygonization. It leads to the
formation of sub-grains
Grain Boundary Mobility
• MGB---Grain Boundary Mobility in response to a driving force
• Measures how easy is is for atoms to transition from one grain to another

• V (GB velocity) = MGB F where F is force on GB

• Potential Forces on Grain Boundary:

• Curvature
• Difference in interface energies
• Differences in strain energy density

For high angle boundaries (similar to diffusion equation)

Curvature Driven Grain Growth
• Due to Gibbs Thompson effect, Energy inside is higher for concave side

• atoms diffuse away from the concave side and concave side shrinks

• If F is driving force than

• Work done in moving a GB by distance δx = F. δx

Change in energy = ΔG (δx/ Vm)

Or Force on GB = ΔG / Vm Nm-2 3.18

The force on the boundary is simply the free energy

Difference per unit volume of material
Also will cause GB to straighten
 Strain energy-Driven Grain Growth

• Strain energy differences across GBs give rise to a driving forces for GB motion

• Atomic motion across GB moves GB in opposite direction

• Strain energy differences can be due to mechanical property differences due to

different grain orientations
Kinetics of Grain Growth: over time larger grains consume smaller grains (grain boundary
area so energy is reduced)
Class Exercise
At high temperatures there is a tendency for glasses to change shape into a sphere. The
surface energy of a glass at 650°C is 0.3 J.m-2. If the glass changes, from a cylinder of length
100 mm and diameter 20μm, into a sphere, find the energy released.

•
HW #7 (Due Tuesday 4/26/2022 before class )

Q 1 At high temperatures there is a tendency for glasses to change shape into a sphere.
The surface energy of a glass at 650°C is 0.3 J.m-2. If the glass changes, from a cylinder of
length 100 mm and diameter 20μm, into a sphere, find the energy released

Q 2

Q3 For the BCC a. determine the planar density (atoms/m 2) in terms of atomic radius R for

(100) and (110) planes

b. Which of these planes will have lower surface energy?

Q4 Using the method of section 3.1 in your book, estimate the surface energy of [200] and
[220]surface planes in a fcc cystal

Q5 Conduct internet search and write small notes on

a. what is contact angle and how is it measured?
b. How is contact angle related to surface energy?
c. Will a clean metal surface have higher or lower contact angle than a dirty surface?