Modeling growth, coalescence, and stability of helium precipitates on patterned interfaces

Abstract

We develop a phase field simulation to model morphology evolution of helium (He) precipitates on solid-state interfaces. Our approach accounts for differences in precipitate contact angles arising from location-dependent interface energies and is capable of describing precipitate growth, coalescence, and de-wetting from the interface. We demonstrate our approach for interfaces with linear chains of wettable patches and find that different wetting energies and patch spacings give rise to four distinct classes of helium precipitate morphologies. Our method may be adapted to other scenarios involving fluids precipitating on non-uniform solid-state interfaces as well as to precipitation on patterned surfaces.

Self-organization of helium precipitates into elongated channels within metal nanolayers

“…To elucidate the mechanism of He channel formation, we use a recently developed phase-field model that accounts for preferential wetting of interface defects by He precipitates (see Materials and Methods) ( 31 ). Our simulation domain consists of a layer bounded by two impenetrable interfaces, as shown in Fig.…”

“…We simulated the growth and coalescence of He precipitates using a phase-field model that represented the Cu-He binary system with a single order parameter governed by the Cahn-Hilliard equation. A detailed description of this model may be found in the study of Yuryev and Demkowicz ( 31 ). Location-dependent wetting and nonwetting behavior on the two interfaces bounding the simulation domain was imposed using classical Dirichlet and specially developed Neumann boundary conditions, respectively.…”

Superhydrophobic Surface and Lubricant‐Infused Surface: Implementing Two Extremes on Electrodeposited NiTiO2 Surface to Drive Optimal Wettability Regimes for Droplets’ Multifunctional Behaviors

“…Dirichlet boundary condition of ψ ¼ α s is applied at the bottom boundary corresponding to the solid phase. Equation ( 1) is resolved by the FEM-based discretization technique in MOOSE Framework, [26,[41][42][43][44][45] and the numerical solutions of ψ are obtained for the three hydrophobic materials systems.…”

Fabrication of cerium myristate coating for a mechanochemically robust modifier-free superwettability system to enhance the corrosion resistance on 316L steel by one-step electrodeposition

“…The value κ of is kept as 5.25 × 10 -4 . The mobility (M) is implemented as a function of phase field variable [63] by the following expression:…”