Abstract
Vacancy-assisted tracer diffusion in a multicomponent kinetic alloy consisting of xλN atoms with hopping rate Jλ (where λA,B,C, etc.) and υN vacancies (where υ=1Σλxλ) distributed randomly over a regular d-dimensional (where d2) hypercubic, or close-packed, lattice of N sites is analyzed through a self-consistent renormalization of a recent theory of Tahir-Kheli and Elliott combined with a generalization of concepts introduced by Manning. The result for the tracer-diffusion correlation factor is the following: ftr=H(tr)[H(tr)+2J0], where J0 is the tracer-hopping rate, H(tr) is a generalized effective vacancy escape frequency, H(tr)=[M(1υ)[J0υftr+Jeff], where Jeff is an effective hopping rate of the background atoms averaged with a weighting factor proportional to xλ and fλ, i.e., Jeff=Σλ(Jλxλfλ)Σλ(xλfλ) and M=(1+cosθ)cosθ. For a single-component alloy, with particle concentration x, Jλ=J, and vacancy concentration υ=1x our theory provides an excellent overall description of the correlation factor as long as JJ0z2. Indeed, even for J0, the...