A PROCEDURE TO DETERMINE THE SEGREGATION PARAMETERS IN TERNARY SYSTEMS FROM EXPERIMENTAL DATA OF A LINEAR TEMPERATURE RUN

Profiles of surface concentrations as a function of temperature, where the temperature is increased at a constant rate, contain the necessary information to extract segregation parameters. A model using rate equations can be used to simulate these profiles. Even on a high-speed computer, solving these equations can take hours. For ternary and higher component alloys the fit parameters are at least nine and finding the best fit manually can extend the search to days. Theoretical segregation and diffusion models show two temperature regions of interest. In the low-temperature region, representing the kinetics of segregation, the diffusion coefficients of the species dominate the flux of atoms to the surface, and in the high-temperature region the surface concentrations are independent of the diffusion coefficients. In the high-temperature equilibrium region the surface concentrations are determined only by the segregation energies and interaction coefficients. A procedure is presented that can find a good set of segregation parameters within seconds. The sensitivity of selecting the kinetics, as well as the equilibrium temperature regions will be demonstrated. The procedure is used to extract the segregation parameters for a Cu(111) 0.13 at% Sn 0.18 at% Sb system.