Melting of Bi nanoparticles embedded in a Zn matrix Original Research Article

We report the melting behavior of nanometric-Bi particles embedded in the zinc matrix synthesized by the rapid solidification processing. These particles have specific orientation relation with the matrix given by {0 0 0 1}Zn ∥{1 0–1 2}Bi and 〈1 1–2 0〉Zn nearly ∥〈1–2 1 0〉Bi. A change in melting behavior is observed on thermal cycling. The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results reveal that a fraction of Bi particles melts at 91–95 K below the bulk melting temperature during the second DSC-cycle. It is shown that the division of a single crystalline nano-Bi particle into several grains during solidification results in the significant reduction in melting, which can be explained by the phenomenological theory of melting.