Melting and solidification of indium nanocrystals on (002) graphite

Ordered arrays of highly oriented single-crystal semiconductor nanoparticles on silicon substrates

“…All these will destroy the high regularity of the nanoparticles during the oxidation process in our case. Here we used a three-step oxidation process to realize the transformation of In nanoparticles to In 2 O 3 nanoparticles: in the first step, the temperature was increased to 146 • C, which is around the melting point of the In nanoparticles (for In nanoparticles with diameters of several tens of nanometres, the melting point is about 10 • C lower than the melting point of bulk In (156.61 • C)) [33], and held at 146 • C for 1 h (the preheating process). In the second step, the temperature ramp process, the temperature was ramped to 800 • C at a rate of 10 • C min −1 ; this process took about 1 h. The third step (the final oxidation process) is holding the temperature at 800 • C for 2 h to complete the oxidation.…”

Process Pathway Controlled Evolution of Phase and Van‐der‐Waals Epitaxy in In/In2O3 on Graphene Heterostructures

“…This in turn implies the absence of covalent bonds between the graphene and the In at any stage of fabrication and suggests that the In/ graphene interface is of vdW type, consistent with prior suggested weak vdW interactions between In and graphite. [39,72] Figure 2 demonstrates that the In particles on graphene exhibit electron beam (e-beam) induced "quasi-melting" under high-resolution STEM imaging conditions when electron dose rates are above ≈5 × 10 5 e − nm −2 s −1 (in contrast, when lower electron dose rates are used for STEM imaging the structure of particles remains unperturbed under the beam). The "quasimelting" for high electron dose rates is related to the low melting point of In compounded with particle-sized induced melting point depression [39,40,73,75] and energy transfer from the scanning e-beam.…”

“…[39,72] Figure 2 demonstrates that the In particles on graphene exhibit electron beam (e-beam) induced "quasi-melting" under high-resolution STEM imaging conditions when electron dose rates are above ≈5 × 10 5 e − nm −2 s −1 (in contrast, when lower electron dose rates are used for STEM imaging the structure of particles remains unperturbed under the beam). The "quasimelting" for high electron dose rates is related to the low melting point of In compounded with particle-sized induced melting point depression [39,40,73,75] and energy transfer from the scanning e-beam. [75][76][77] As an example in Figure 2 the structural dynamics observed for a given bct In[100] particle involve various states including amorphous In as well as poly-crystalline and single-crystalline In particles.…”

“…In this context, the indium (In) and indium oxide (In 2 O 3 ) system is a non-2D metal(-oxide) system not only with high relevance for applications but which is also a particularly suitable model system to study non-2D/2D heterostructures: In has a low melting point (≈160 °C), [39] retains a low vapor pressure when molten and consequently avoids evaporation for a wide temperature range [39] and shows comparatively facile oxidation behavior for thin In deposits. [40][41][42][43] Combined these properties suggest In to be advantageous for following non-2D metal/2D material interactions and dynamic reconstructions in high-resolution (S)TEM.…”

Specifics of low-temperature melting and disintegration into drops of silver thin films

“…The effect of melting and decaying into drops of thin films at a temperature that is lower than the refer ence melting point of the element is well known and described in the literature [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. According to ther modynamic calculations, if a body thickness is limited by the surface energy of which is comparable with the bulk energy of the body then a decrease in equilibrium temperature of the substance phase transition from the solid to liquid state takes place.…”