Relaxation kinetics of the long-range order parameter in a non-uniform system studied by the phase field method using the free energy obtained by the cluster variation method

The order-order relaxation process of the long-range order parameter in the non-uniform L1₀ ordered phase is investigated by the hybridized calculation using the phase field method (PFM) and the cluster variation method (CVM). The resultant kinetics are composed of three processes sufficiently differing in the relaxation rates. The first and second processes correspond to antisite ordering-disordering relaxation within the ordered domain and relaxation due to a wetting-antiwetting of the antiphase boundary respectively. The third process is due to a coarsening of the ordered domain and its relaxation rate is fairly slow compared with the relaxation rates of the first and second processes; this is consistent with experimental observation. It is noted that the present result of relaxation kinetics involving the three processes is obtained only by the hybridized calculation using the PFM and CVM.