Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
High purity bicrystals of MgO have been grown using chemical vapor transport for the purpose of studying oxygen grain boundary diffusion. Preliminary data indicate preferential diffusion of oxygen along ∑ 13 symmetric tilt boundaries. The measured grain boundary diffusivities were approximately 4 orders of magnitude higher than the corresponding bulk values. The activation energies for bulk and grain boundary diffusion were found to be equal to within experimental error, (≈3.9eV)