Effect of Ni solute on grain boundary diffusivity and structure of βSn

The effect of Ni impurity on the self-diffusivity of βSn in the (1 0 1) symmetric tilt grain boundary is investigated. Using molecular dynamics simulations over a temperature range of 300–450 K. It is shown that Ni solute decreases the grain boundary self-diffusivity of βSn as the amount of solute in grain boundary increases. We also study the solute effect on the diffusive width of grain boundary and observe that low concentrations of Ni solute lead to shrinking of the grain boundary width relative to the pure βSn grain boundary.