Potassium self-diffusion in a K-rich single-crystal alkali feldspar

The paper reports potassium diffusion measurements performed on gem-quality single-crystal alkali feldspar in the temperature range from 1169 to 1021 K. Natural sanidine from Volkesfeld, Germany was implanted with {}^{43}K at the ISOLDE/CERN radioactive ion-beam facility normal to the (001) crystallographic plane. Diffusion coefficients are well described by the Arrhenius equation with an activation energy of 2.4 eV and a pre-exponential factor of 5×10^{-6}m^{2}/s, which is more than three orders of magnitude lower than the {}^{22}Na diffusivity in the same feldspar and the same crystallographic direction. State-of-the-art considerations including ionic conductivity data on the same crystal and Monte Carlo simulations of diffusion in random binary alloy structures point to a correlated motion of K and Na through the interstitialcy mechanism.