• Mayes, Edwin Lh
• Krishnamurthi, Vaishnavi
• Kalantarzadeh, Kourosh
• Meftahi, Nastaran
• Zuraiqi, Karma
• Christofferson, Andrew J.
• Matuszek, Karolina
• Elbourne, Aaron
• Parker, Caiden
• Fatima, Syeda Saba
• Tang, Jianbo
• Chiang, Ken
• Russo, Salvy P.
• Mcconville, Chris F.

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Crystallization of alloys from a molten state is a fundamental process underpinning metallurgy. Here the direct imaging of an intermetallic precipitation reaction at equilibrium in a liquid‐metal environment is demonstrated. It is shown that the outer layers of a solidified intermetallic are surprisingly unstable to the depths of several nanometers, fluctuating between a crystalline and a liquid state. This effect, referred to herein as crystal interface liquefaction, is observed at remarkably low temperatures and results in highly unstable crystal interfaces at temperatures exceeding 200 K below the bulk melting point of the solid. In general, any liquefaction process would occur at or close to the formal melting point of a solid, thus differentiating the observed liquefaction phenomenon from other processes such as surface pre‐melting or conventional bulk melting. Crystal interface liquefaction is observed in a variety of binary alloy systems and as such, the findings may impact the understanding of crystallization and solidification processes in metallic systems and alloys more generally.</jats:p>

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• surface
• precipitation
• intermetallic
• crystallization