Melting of the symmetrical tilt boundaries in copper

The melting transition in three high-energy and two low-energy fee Cu symme trical tilt grain boundaries (STGBs) has been investigated by molecular-dyn amics (MD) simulations. Low-energy STGBs are found to be crystalline from r oom temperature all the way up to T-0 (T-0 is the thermodynamic equilibrium melting point). In contrast, all high-energy STGBs undergo premelting whic h is initiated at a transition temperature T-c (T-c < T-0). Moreover, the h igher the zero-temperature GB energy, the lower the T-c.