A fundamental approach for the measurement of solid-liquid interfacial energy

Abstract

Solid-liquid interfacial energies in alloys are important properties for the process design of materials production such as casting and crystal growth. Inadequate information exists on solid-liquid interfacial energies. Our aim for this study was thus to establish a method to measure solid-liquid interfacial energies in alloys from equilibrium interfacial shapes of solid-liquid-gas phases. Experiments were carried out on Cu-B and Ag-Bi systems where copper and silver were treated as solid phases, respectively. Since the determined values for solid-liquid interfacial tensions for both systems agreed with reported values or estimated values, it was clarified that solid-liquid interfacial energies can be measured by observing the interfacial shape. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd.