Melting behavior of nanosized lead particles embedded in an aluminum matrix Original Research Article

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, employing semi-empirical glue-type (similar to embedded atom method) many-body potentials, have been used to model the melting behavior of nanosized Pb particles embedded in an Al matrix. All the Pb particles studied melt well above the bulk melting temperature, with the melting point elevation displaying a damped periodic trend with increasing Pb particle size. By inspecting snapshots derived from the simulations, it is also possible to conclude that melting occurs via nucleation at {1 0 0} interfaces. A phenomenological model, based on the consideration of interfacial energy, volume expansion and lattice mismatch, has been developed to describe this interesting melting behavior. Our model leads to the conclusion that the periodic variation of melting point with size is due to an oscillatory strain energy contribution arising from the large size mismatch of Pb and Al atoms.