•Xiao-Jun Gu, Peter Bunzel, Harald Rösner, Jörg Weissmüller
und Gerhard Wilde
Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH, Institut für Nanotechnologie,
Postfach 3640, D-76021 Karlsruhe
The melting behavior of finite systems has been of considerable theoretical
and experimental interest for many years. In most cases, it has been reported
that particles of finite sizes melt at temperatures significantly below
their equilibrium melting points. There has also been evidence that superheating
rather than melting point depression is achievable for some metallic particles.
However, very limited investigations exist on the melting of nano-sized
alloys as opposed to elemental solids. In this study, nanoscale Pb-Sn inclusions
were synthesized either by infiltration of binary Pb-Sn alloys into arrays
of laterally nanostructured porous Al2O3 templates
under high pressure or by melt spinning immiscible Al-rich Al-Pb-Sn alloys,
respectively. The morphology and partitioning as well as the melting behavior
of the nanoscaled Pb-Sn inclusions were studied in dependence of size,
nominal composition and processing pathway by scanning electron microscopy
(SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and differential scanning
calorimetry (DSC). This project is supported by the DFG within the SPP
1120 (WI 1899/2-1).