Size Effect and Crystal–Melt Interfacial Tension in the Formation of Alloys from Ultrafine Sublayers of Dissimilar Metals

Thirty-four binary systems were prepared by co-sputtering dissimilar metals onto a moving substrate. In the present work, the experimentally controlled size parameter is the nominal thickness of a single metal sublayer deposited during one substrate passage rather than a directly measured nanoparticle diameter. A formal linear fit between the characteristic sublayer thickness and the bulk melting temperature gives the empirical relation dMe=1.46−7.3×10−5T0, with a low coefficient of determination, R2=0.007, indicating that the bulk melting temperature alone explains only a small part of the observed variation. Alloy composition and deposition conditions also affect the characteristic sublayer thickness. Using the Thomson equation within an effective-size approximation, the crystal–melt interfacial tension of the constituent metals was estimated. The approach provides a practical framework for selecting deposition conditions for the synthesis of binary alloy systems, while the calculated interfacial-tension values should be regarded as model-based estimates.