Effect of External Magnetic Field on Grain Boundary Migration in Non-magnetic Systems: A Phase-Field Study

In this work, we propose a phase field model to investigate grain boundary (GB) migration under an external magnetic field in a non-magnetic Bismuth (Bi) system. We take into account various arrangements, such as bicrystals (rectangular and circular) and polycrystals (hexagonal grains), where we apply magnetic fields parallel and perpendicular to the c-axis. We observe that the direction of the applied magnetic field affects the GB migration direction; the grain with the c-axis parallel to the magnetic field grows preferentially at the expense of the grain with the c-axis perpendicular to the magnetic field. Moreover, our study indicates that the difference in the magnetic free energy density of grains with various orientations results in preferential grain growth.