Surface and bulk melting of small metal clusters

TL;DR

This paper provides an analytical model for understanding surface and bulk melting in nanoscale metal clusters, explaining experimental observations and predicting critical sizes for phase transitions.

Contribution

It introduces an analytical solution to the Landau model for nanoscale metal melting, elucidating the pseudo-crystalline phase and size-dependent melting behavior.

Findings

Liquid skin forms only above a critical radius.

Size affects melting temperature and latent heat.

Quantitative agreement with Sn particle experiments.

Abstract

We present an analytical solution to the two-parabola Landau model, applied to melting of metal particles with sizes in the nanoscale range. The results provide an analytical understanding of the recently observed pseudo-crystalline phase of nanoscale Sn particles. Liquid skin formation as a precursor of melting is found to occur only for particles with radii, greater than an explicitly given critical radius. The size effect of the melting temperature and the latent heat has been calculated and quantitative agreement with experiments on Sn particles was found.