Dynamical Ising model simulations of nucleation and growth in copper-cobalt alloys

A simple dynamical Ising model on a fixed lattice with a single bond energy parameter has been used to simulate the kinetics of diffusion during solid-state phase transformations in binary metallic alloys. Results of these simulations are compared with direct real-space measurements of the atomic distributions of elements in alloys, obtained with the position-sensitive atom probe. Despite the simplicity of the model, there is good quantitative agreement between the development of microstructure in the simulation and the nucleation and growth of cobalt-rich precipitates in copper-cobalt alloys.