Grain boundaries are Brownian ratchets
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
We demonstrate that grain boundaries (GBs) behave as Brownian ratchets, exhibiting direction-dependent mobilities and unidirectional motion under oscillatory driving forces or cyclic thermal annealing. We observed these phenomena for nearly all nonsymmetric GBs but not for symmetric ones. Our observations build on molecular dynamics and phase-field crystal simulations for a wide range of GB types and driving forces in both bicrystal and polycrystalline microstructures. We corroborate these simulation results through in situ experimental observations. We analyze these results with a Markov chain model and explore the implications of GB ratchet behavior for materials processing and microstructure tailoring.
Details
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 980-985 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Science |
Volume | 385 |
Issue number | 6712 |
Publication status | Published - 30 Aug 2024 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
External IDs
Scopus | 85203115434 |
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