Solid-liquid interfacial tension in metals: correlation with the melting point

摘要

The corresponding-states approach, previously developed by the author to predict the surface tension properties of pure solid and liquid metals, has been extended to crystal-melt interface tension analysis. A simple expression, scaled linearly with the melting temperature Tin and with the atomic volume of the solid at the melting point as Omega(sm)(-2/3), has been derived for the solid-liquid interface tension gamma(sl) of pure metals. It was shown that gamma(sl) and its temperature dependence are determinec mainly by the balance of the interfacial entropy and the entropy of fusion. At the melting temperature, the suggested formula predicts values agreeing with experimental data obtained from maximum supercooling measurements and from nucleation kinetics experiments. The results are compared with empirical relationships and discussed in the light of recent molecular-dynamics simulations. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.