Supercooling and Nucleation of Silicon after Laser Melting

Bulk nucleation of crystalline Si at a supercooling of 505 K was observed following pulsedlaser-induced melting of thin films. If the nucleation was homogeneous, the estimated nucleation rate of 10²⁹ events/m³ ·{} s implies a liquid-Si-crystalline-Si interfacial energy of 0.34±{}0.02 J/m². In addition, observation of crystalline nucleation bounds the interface energy between amorphous Si and liquid Si to be > 0.20 J/m². This laser melting technique is applicable to nucleation studies in a wide variety of materials.