Kinetic faceting and anomalous coarsening in elastically inhomogeneous multiphase systems

With a view of finding a route toward microstructural stability in alloys, we numerically study the impact of elastic inhomogeneities on the growth of inclusions in multiphase systems. We show that growth can proceed either continuously at rough interfaces, or in a layer-by-layer fashion following an elastically induced kinetic faceting process. In the former case, the chemical potential of the inclusions is a smooth function of size, while in the latter case, elasticity increases the barrier for nucleation of new terraces on the facets, leading to an oscillatory behavior of the chemical potential and hence a strong resistance against coarsening, opening up the possibility to stabilize the structure.