Stabilization of Undercooled Metals via Passivating Oxide Layers

Undercooling metals relies on frustration of liquid–solid transition mainly by an increase in activation energy. Passivating oxide layers are a way to isolate the core from heterogenous nucleants (physical barrier) while also raising the activation energy (thermodynamic/kinetic barrier) needed for solidification. The latter is due to composition gradients (speciation) that establishes a sharp chemical potential gradient across the thin (0.7–5...