title: Superheating of confined Pb thin films
abstract: In this work we report, for the first time, an experimental observation of a superheating phenomenon in metal thin films. By means of cold rolling, Pb thin films of about 20 nm thick were sandwiched by Al layers, and between them semicoherent epitaxial Pb/Al interfaces were formed. In situ x-ray diffraction analysis indicated that the confined Pb thin films could be superheated for at least 6 degrees C. Thermodynamic analysis indicated that such a substantial superheating in the confined two-dimensional thin films may originate from suppression of growth of the molten droplets by the epitaxial Al/Pb/Al confinement, instead of suppression of melt nucleation for the confined particle superheating.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Rapidly Solidified Non-equilibrium Alloys, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110015, China.
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.initials: ZH
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Sui
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lu