Breaking of Rotational Symmetry during Decomposition of Elastically Anisotropic Alloys

Abstract

The coarsening of a two-phase structure under the influence of interfacial energy alone is characterized by an isotropic domain morphology which evolves in a self-similar way with time. We have studied the breaking of rotational symmetry due to additional anisotropic elastic misfit interactions in the model alloy Ni-Al-Mo. Introducing a dimensionless parameter $\ensuremath{\rho}$ as the ratio of elastic to interfacial energy, we show that, as long as $\ensuremath{\rho}<1$, the spherically averaged structure function still has time-scaling properties. Under these conditions, the spatial anisotropy of the domains increases linearly with $\ensuremath{\rho}$ and can be understood as a perturbation of the isotropic process at $\ensuremath{\rho}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}0$.