Auger electron spectroscopy and 63Ni radiotracers were used to study the effect of pre-annealing treatments and grain-boundary migration upon Ni grain boundary diffusion in the B-kinetic regime in 5N-purity Cu at 718K. The diffusion penetration profiles were complex, and could be explained in terms of the simultaneous presence of stationary and moving grain boundaries. An attempt to emphasize the grain-boundary migration effect was made by applying various pre-annealing treatments before diffusion. Auger electron spectroscopy showed that this method of preparation produced a modification of the bulk S content. It was shown that a few ppm of S, dissolved in the bulk, had a marked effect upon the results: the higher the S content, the smaller was the triple-product and the lower was the grain-boundary migration velocity. The measured values of the triple-product ranged from 2.12 x 10-22 to 6.41 x 10-22m3/s.

Z.Tôkei, Z.Erdélyi, C.Girardeaux, A.Rolland: Philosophical Magazine A, 2000, 80[5], 1075-83