Concentration dependence of the crystal nucleation kinetics in undercooled Cu–Ge melts

Abstract

The crystallization temperature of deeply undercooled Cu–Ge alloy melts is repeatedly measured. A statistical analysis is applied on the undercooling distributions obtained from nine different compositions, ranging from the pure semimetal (Ge) to the pure metal (Cu). By considering each undercooling distribution as an inhomogeneous Poisson process, the nucleation rates for every composition are calculated. The Thompson–Spaepen model for homogeneous nucleation in binary alloys is applied, enabling the estimation of nucleation parameters, such as kinetic pre-factors and interfacial energies, as a function of composition. Furthermore, the Turnbull coefficient α, a dimensionless solid–liquid interfacial energy constant, is also calculated as a function of alloy constitution, suggesting a dependence on the liquid composition. The composition-dependent changes of α are of considerable importance, since the α is originally defined for pure systems as a quantity dependent on crystal structure, and is nevertheless used for describing nucleation kinetics of binary and glass forming multi-component alloy systems.