Phase selection during solidification of undercooled Ti–Fe–Si–O melts

The alloy system Ti–Fe–Si–O forms a large variety of stable and metastable solid phases. By non-equilibrium solidification from the metastable state of an undercooled melt different solidification pathways are accessible. In this work the phase selection behavior during solidification of Ti–Fe–Si–O melts was investigated as function of undercooling and alloy composition using the combination of the containerless processing technique of electromagnetic levitation and energy dispersive diffraction of synchrotron radiation. This allows direct determination of the crystal structure of the solid phases formed during solidification.