Superheating in confined Pb(110) films

The melting behaviour of Pb film embedded in an Al matrix has been investig ated by a molecular dynamics simulation technique. The Sutton-Chen potentia l for alloys has been employed to perform these calculations. Melting of a Pb(110) film has been studied by embedding it in Al(110) and Al(111). Melti ng is found to initiate at the film-host interface for the Al(110) host. Ho wever, a change in orientation of the film is observed before superheating when the film is embedded in the Al(111) matrix. The superheating determine d by simulation is comparable with the value calculated by homogeneous theo ry.