Static molecular simulations of binary alloys under extrinsic forcing show that complex ordered or segregated structures may evolve even in the absence of thermally activated diffusion. This result is in opposition to the standard theoretical framework for so-called “driven alloys,” which assumes that extrinsic driving is an ideally randomizing process, and therefore predicts only random atomic configurations in the athermal limit. We propose a qualitative modification to the theory that introduces a new control parameter and use additional Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate the physical plausibility of this modification. New research directions in nonequilibrium dynamic systems are also suggested by this analysis.

• Received 14 July 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.235505