Thermal spike model of ion-induced grain growth

This paper reports on a thermal spike model developed to describe the phenomenon of ion irradiation-induced grain growth in metal alloy thin films. In single phase films where the driving force for grain growth is the reduction of grain boundary curvature, the model shows that ion-induced grain boundary mobility, Mion, is proportional to the quantity FD2/Δcoh3, where FD is the ion and recoil energy deposited in nuclear interactions and ΔHcoh is the cohesive energy of the element or alloy. Experimental grain growth results from ion irradiated coevaporated binary alloy films compare favorably with model predictions