Kirkendall Effect: Dramatic History of Discovery and Developments

The importance and generality of Kirkendall discovery, which opened new area in diffusion science, have been discussed. The developments of Kirkendall’s idea for sub-surface (SS) and grain boundary (GB) interdiffusion have been considered and applied for the advanced structural materials, such as thin films and nano-composites. The kinetics and mechanisms of SS and GB Kirkendall effects have been analyzed theoretically and studied experimentally.