User:Moises Martins de Oliveira/sandbox

Phase Transformations in Thin Films
Phase transformation is the change of the state of a material at a specific temperature to another state without changing the chemical composition of the material. The driving forces are thermodynamic and they transform an unstable material into a metaestable material or a material with stable phases with lower free energy. solid state phase tranformations occur by nucleation and continued growth of new phase grains. A higher quantity of heteregenous grain boundary and interfacial nucleation sites on polycristaline films produce higher diffusivities and reaction rates causing the transformation to proceed more rapidly in lower temperatures.