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Atomistics of pre-nucleation layering of liquid metals at the interface with poor nucleants
DOI:
10.1038/s42004-018-0104-1
Authors:
Sida
Ma
(Tsinghua University)
,
Adam J.
Brown
(University of Leicester)
,
Rui
Yan
(Tsinghua University)
,
Ruslan L.
Davidchack
(University of Leicester)
,
Paul B.
Howes
(University of Leicester)
,
Chris
Nicklin
(Diamond Light Source)
,
Qijie
Zhai
(Shanghai University)
,
Tao
Jing
(Tsinghua University)
,
Hongbiao
Dong
(University of Leicester)
Co-authored by industrial partner:
No
Type:
Journal Paper
Journal:
Communications Chemistry
, VOL 2
State:
Published (Approved)
Published:
January 2019
Diamond Proposal Number(s):
12083
,
6663

Abstract: Liquid layering at heterogeneous solid/liquid interfaces is a general phenomenon, which provides structural templates for nucleation of crystalline phases on potent nucleants. However, its efficacy near poor nucleants is incompletely understood. Here we use a combination of X-ray crystal truncation rod analysis and ab initio molecular dynamics to probe the pre-nucleation liquid layering at the sapphire–aluminium solid/liquid interface. At the sapphire side, a ~1.6 aluminium-terminated structure develops, and at the liquid side, two pre-nucleation layers emerge at 950 K. No more pre-nucleation layer forms with decreasing temperature indicating that nucleation of crystalline aluminium through layer-by-layer atomic adsorption of liquid atoms is not favoured. Instead, the appearance of stochastically-formed nuclei near the substrate is supported by our experiments. Nucleation on poor nucleants is dominated by the stochastic nucleation events which are substantially influenced by the pre-nucleation layers that determine the surface structure in contact with the nuclei.
Journal Keywords: Atomistic models; Characterization and analytical techniques; Metals and alloys
Subject Areas:
Chemistry,
Materials,
Physics
Instruments:
I07-Surface & interface diffraction
Added On:
20/02/2019 14:45
Documents:
s42004-018-0104-1.pdf
Discipline Tags:
Surfaces
Physics
Chemistry
Materials Science
Inorganic Chemistry
Metallurgy
Technical Tags:
Diffraction
Surface X-ray Diffraction