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Recent experiments have evidenced sub-nanometer resolution in plasmonic-enhanced probe spectroscopy. Such a high resolution cannot be simply explained using the commonly considered radii of metallic nanoparticles on plasmonic probes. In this contribution the effects of defects as small as a single atom found on spherical plasmonic particles acting as probing tips are investigated in connection with the spatial resolution provided. The presence of abundant edge and corner sites with atomic scale dimensions in crystalline metallic nanoparticles is evident from transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images. Electrodynamic calculations based on the Finite Element Method (FEM) are implemented to reveal the impact of the presence of such atomic features in probing tips on the lateral spatial resolution and field localization. Our analysis is developed for three different configurations, and under resonant and non-resonant illumination conditions, respectively. Based on this analysis, the limits of field enhancement, lateral resolution and field confinement in plasmon-enhanced spectroscopy and microscopy are inferred, reaching values below 1 nanometer for reasonable atomic sizes.

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Melting processes influence the microstructure evolution in metal alloys during casting and heat treatments. Melting is often treated as 'inverse solidification', which is only appropriate in a limited number of cases. In the present article, asymmetry between solidification and melting is reviewed in detail. The current state of the thermodynamic description of melting under diffusion control is outlined. Kinetic aspects that break the symmetry between solidifi-cation and melting that are discussed are solute partitioning, solute concentration gradients and solute transport in the involved phases. The view on nucleation of liquid and pre-melting phenomena, mostly of pure materials, based on experimental and theoretical work, is given. Emphasis is laid on aspects of melting with technical relevance, i.e. melting of alloys. Particu-larities of thermally and solutally controlled melting are introduced. Mechanisms that involve both melting and solidification simultaneously are capillary driven coarsening, temperature gradient zone melting and liquid film migration. The impact of these processes on microstructural evolution is discussed. Open questions concerning modelling and simulation of melting, namely, the interaction of different melting mechanisms and the role of the solid/liquid inter-face, are identified.