Supergrains produced by lateral growth using Joule-heating induced crystallization without artificial control

Abstract

In Joule-heating induced crystallization, phase transformation can occur through solid-to-solid or liquid-to-solid phases, according to the input conditions of the pulsed power. It was observed that during a Joule-heating period of several tens of microseconds, randomly nucleated liquid seeds followed by rapid solidification in an amorphous matrix play an important role, especially for liquid-to-solid transformation. Meanwhile, under high-power input processing conditions, supergrains of greater than 5 mu m in size were produced by lateral growth from the initial seeds without artificial control.