Dendrite Growth Kinetics in Undercooled Melts of Intermetallic Compounds

Solidification needs an undercooling to drive the solidification front. If large undercoolings are achieved, metastable solid materials are solidified from the undercooled melt. Containerless processing provides the conditions to achieve large undercoolings since heterogeneous nucleation on container walls is completely avoided. In the present contribution both electromagnetic and electrostatic levitation are applied. The velocity of rapidly advancing dendrites is measured as a function of undercooling by a High-Speed-Camera. The dendrite growth dynamics is investigated in undercooled melts of intermetallic compounds. The Al50Ni50 alloy is studied with respect to disorder trapping that leads to a disordered superlattice structure if the melt is undercooled beyond a critical undercooling. Disorder trapping is evidenced by in situ energy dispersive diffraction using synchrotron radiation of high intensity to record full diffraction pattern on levitated samples within a short time interval. Experiments on Ni2B using different processing techniques of varying the level of convection reveal convection-induced faceting of rapidly growing dendrites. Eventually, the growth velocity is measured in an undercooled melt of glass forming Cu50Zr50 alloy. A maximum in the growth velocity–undercooling relation is proved. This is understood by the fact that the temperature dependent diffusion coefficient counteracts the thermodynamic driving force for rapid growth if the temperature of the undercooled melt is approaching the temperature regime above the glass transition temperature. The analysis of this result allows for determining the activation energy of atomic attachment kinetics at the solid–liquid interface that is comparable to the activation energy of atomic diffusion as determined by independent measurements of the atomic diffusion in undercooled Cu50Zr50 alloy melt. OPEN ACCESS Crystals 2015, 5 356