Syntax:
app_style diffusion/multiphase
Examples:
app_style diffusion/multiphase diffusion/multiphase pin 1 # after creating sites diffusion/multiphase phase 2 diffusion/multiphase phase 3 diffusion/multiphase weight 0.5 pair 2 3
Description:
This is an on-lattice application which is a multi-species or multiphase extension to the single species or single phase diffusion app. If run with an atomic scale lattice, then this app allows definition of multiple atomic species via the diffusion/multiphase command it defines. Likewise if run with a coarse-grained lattice, it allows definition of multiple phases. The rest of this doc page uses the "phase" terminology.
In general, diffusion can lead to phase separation when bond energies (energy of a pair of neighboring sites) between like phases are lower than bond energies between different phases. The rate of phase separation and the degree to which it occurs can be controlled by setting the relative bond energies between different phases.
For this app, each site has a phase value which is a value >= 1. There can be an arbitrary number of phases. Note that if you want vacancies included in the model, they are specified as a distinct phase, just as Al or Cu atoms would be individual phases in an atomic-scale model.
As illustrated in the example above, the diffusion/multiphase command is used with this application. Every numeric phase (unique site value) must be set to either "phase" or "pin". The "phase" keyword should be used if the phase is mobile (it diffuses). The "pin" keyword should be used if it is immobile. The "weight" keyword is used to define a pairwise energy between pairs of neighbor phases in the energy Hamiltonian for the model:
Hi = Sum_j weight_ij
where Sum_j is a sum over all the neighbor sites of site I and weight_ij is the pairwise energy for the phases of site I and J. Only pairs of unlike phases can be assigned a weight. Pairs of like phases do not contribute to the site energy. See the diffusion/multiphase command for details.
Note that this equation means this app is effectively limited to the energy style linear option of the app_style diffusion command.
Also note that there should always be two or more non-pinned phases in your model. Otherwise no diffusive exchanges between sites with different phases will take place.
To run this application, an initial phase distribution on the lattice should be specified. Each lattice site has an integer value which stores its phase label. If only relative volume fractions of the phases is desired, the set command can be used to set values. If there is structure to the initial phase distribution, this can be written to a SPPARKS input file and read via the read_sites command; or, the set stitch command can be used to read phase distribution from a Stitch file formatted by the Stitch library included with SPPARKS.
The examples/diffusion_multiphase directory has several scripts which illusrate use of this app; example scripts also demonstrate initializing phase distributions.
The following additional command is defined by this application.
| diffusion/multiphase | define phases and weights |
Restrictions: none
Related commands:
diffusion/multiphase, app_style diffusion
Default: none