Journal of Crystal Growth, Vol.311, No.5, 1250-1255, 2009
Crystallization of supercooled silicon droplets initiated through small silicon nitride particles
Small droplets of silicon melts were supercooled in polished sapphire crucibles and crystallization was observed by a microscope equipped with a CMOS camera. The pure silicon samples could be supercooled by up to Delta T approximate to 100K beyond the melting point T-mp=1687 K before polycrystalline solidification starts. However, by addition of amorphous silicon nitride particles with about 20-40 nm diameters we could systematically initiate the growth of single crystals in the melt at supercooling as small as 2K