Crystal Disordering in Melting and Amorphization

Abstract

Among the structural phase transitions that evolve from an initially crystalline state, melting is the most common and most extensively studied. Another transformation that produces a disordered final state is solid-state amorphization. In this section the underlying thermodynamic and kinetic features of these two phenomena in a bulk lattice and at surfaces and grain boundaries will be discussed [1]. By focusing on the insights derived from molecular-dynamics simulations, we are led quite naturally to a view of structural disordering that unifies the crystal-to-liquid (C-L) and crystal-to-amorphous (C-A) transitions at high and low temperatures, respectively.