Supercooling and Nucleation of Silicon after Laser Melting

Abstract

Bulk nucleation of crystalline Si at a supercooling of 505 K was observed following pulsedlaser-induced melting of thin films. If the nucleation was homogeneous, the estimated nucleation rate of ${10}^{29}$ events/${\mathrm{m}}^{3}$ \ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{} s implies a liquid-Si-crystalline-Si interfacial energy of 0.34\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.02 J/${\mathrm{m}}^{2}$. In addition, observation of crystalline nucleation bounds the interface energy between amorphous Si and liquid Si to be > 0.20 J/${\mathrm{m}}^{2}$. This laser melting technique is applicable to nucleation studies in a wide variety of materials.