Abstract
The high-temperature behavior of a high-angle twist grain boundary, a free surface, and planar arrays of voids of various sizes, all on the (001) plane in copper, are studied through molecular-dynamics simulation using an embedded-atom-method potential. Independently, we determine the thermodynamic melting point, of this potential through an analysis of the free energies of a perfect crystal and the liquid phase. It is found that an ideal crystal consisting of nearly 1000 atoms may be superheated over 200 K above while the introduction of any of the defects listed above nucleates melting at any temperature above . We conclude that nucleation of the liquid phase at extrinsic defects is the most rapid, and therefore the dominant, mechanism of melting.
- Received 20 January 1989
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.40.2841
©1989 American Physical Society