Large melting-point hysteresis of Ge nanocrystals embedded in SiO2

Q Xu; I D Sharp; C W Yuan; D O Yi; C Y Liao; A M Glaeser; A M Minor; J W Beeman; M C Ridgway; P Kluth; J W Ager 3rd; D C Chrzan; E E Haller

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.155701

Large melting-point hysteresis of Ge nanocrystals embedded in SiO2

Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Oct 13;97(15):155701. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.155701. Epub 2006 Oct 9.

Authors

Q Xu¹, I D Sharp, C W Yuan, D O Yi, C Y Liao, A M Glaeser, A M Minor, J W Beeman, M C Ridgway, P Kluth, J W Ager 3rd, D C Chrzan, E E Haller

Affiliation

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.

PMID: 17155336
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.155701

Abstract

The melting behavior of Ge nanocrystals embedded within SiO2 is evaluated using in situ transmission electron microscopy. The observed melting-point hysteresis is large (+/-17%) and nearly symmetric about the bulk melting point. This hysteresis is modeled successfully using classical nucleation theory without the need to invoke epitaxy.