Influence of the history of a melt on the electrical resistivity of cadmium–antimony liquid alloys

Miller, Paces and Komarek (MPK) [Trans. Metall Soc. AIME 230 (1964) 1557] observed an influence of the history of a melt on the electrical resistivity of several cadmium–antimony alloys. In this work we complete the experimental work of MPK with new accurate experiments in order to verify the existence of the phenomenon and to precise by defining the conditions where it appears. We used three important improvements on the experimental design of MPK. First we used quartz cells instead of pyrex cells used by MPK so allowing the heating of the melt well above the temperature of 530 °C attained by MPK. Secondly our experimental design allows to mix mechanically the liquid alloy in order to achieve a macroscopic homogeneity of the melt. Finally we measure simultaneously the thermopower of the Cd60–Sb40 liquid alloy. The time evolution of our experiment is fully described with our conclusions.