Processes at the liquid/crystal boundary upon contact melting in the system with intermediate solid phases

Abstract

Growth of the liquid interlayer in the indium-tin system at 400 K in the process of contact melting in the nonstationary diffusion regime has been investigated experimentally. The contact pairs were composed of pure substances, solid solutions, and intermediate solid phases. The previously developed concepts have been extended to include the case where the existence of intermediate solid phases on both sides of the liquid phase should be taken into account. It follows from the results obtained that the concentration range of the liquid interlayer corresponds to the homogeneity range of the liquid phase in the phase diagram at the temperature of experiments. The results of the experiments can be explained based on the model according to which solid solutions and intermediate solid phases at the liquid/crystal interface arise due to the precipitation from the metastable melt supersaturated by the substance of the adjacent phase.