Measurement and calculation of surface tension for undercooled liquid nickel and its alloy

Abstract

The surface tensions of metastable undercooled liquid nickel and its alloy are experimentally measured and theoretically calculated by electromagnetic levitation oscillating droplet method and molecular dynamics method, respectively. The experimental undercoolings for liquid Ni and ${\text{Ni}}_{90.1}{\text{Si}}_{9.9}$ alloy are 201 and 206 K, whereas the calculated undercoolings are up to 426 and 323 K. The measured surface tension displays the same undercooling dependence as the molecular dynamics calculation. The surface tension increases linearly with the increase in undercooling and no break occurs at the melting temperature. It is found that the correlation of surface tension with temperature predicted by molecular dynamics calculation agrees with the experimental results for both pure Ni and its alloy.