Finite-size scaling behavior of the tracer surface diffusion coefficient near a second-order phase transition

F. Nieto; A.A. Tarasenko; C. Uebing

doi:doi:10.1209/epl/i1998-00397-8

DOI: 10.1209/epl/i1998-00397-8

Europhys. Lett, 43 (5), pp. 558-564 (1998)

Finite-size scaling behavior of the tracer surface diffusion
coefficient near a second-order phase transition

F. Nieto ^1,2, A. A. Tarasenko ^1,3 and C. Uebing ^1,4

¹ Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung
Max-Planck-Str. 1, D-40237 Düsseldorf, Germany
² Departamento de Física and Centro Latinoamericano de Estudios Ilya Prigogine
Universidad Nacional de San Luis, CONICET
Chacabuco 917, 5700 San Luis, Argentina
³ Institute of Physics, National Academy of Science of Ukraine
prospekt Nauki 46, Kiev, Ukraine
⁴ Lehrstuhl für Physikalische Chemie II, Universität Dortmund
Otto-Hahn-Str. 6, D-44227 Dortmund, Germany

(received 15 April 1998; accepted in final form 13 July 1998)

PACS. 68.35Rh - Phase transitions and critical phenomena.
PACS. 68.35Fx - Diffusion; interface formation.
PACS. 64.60Ht - Dynamic critical phenomena.

Abstract:

We investigate the finite-size scaling behavior of the tracer surface diffusion coefficient in the vicinity of a second-order phase transition. For this purpose, we use a lattice gas model of repulsively interacting particles on a square lattice. For all lattice sizes L studied, the measured tracer surface diffusion coefficient, $D_{\rm t}$ , is a smooth function, having an inflexion point at critical temperature. Its derivative, $\partial D_{\rm t}/\partial(1/k_{\rm B}T)$ , exhibits cusp-like maximum which is a) sharply pronounced and b) converged to $T_{\rm c}(\infty)$ for large lattice sizes. We have analyzed the finite-size behavior of $D_{\rm t}$ and obtained its critical exponent $\sigma_{\rm t}=0.665\pm0.003$ .

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