Thermally driven grain boundary migration and melting in Cu.

With molecular dynamics simulations, we systematically investigate melting of a set of Σ3〈110〉70.53° tilt grain boundaries (GB) in Cu bicrystals, including coherent twin boundaries (CTBs), 12 asymmetric tilt grain boundaries (ATGBs), and symmetric incoherent twin boundaries (SITBs), in the order of increasing length weight of SITB or GB energy. ATGBs decompose into CTBs and SITBs, which migrate and coalesce as a result of internal stress relaxation. GBs can be superheated or premelted, and GB melting temperature decreases exponentially with increasing SITB weight, owing to the systematics in GB microstructure. GB melting nucleates at disordered CTB-SITB junctions, and grows along SITBs and then into grain interiors, with the solid-liquid interfaces preferentially aligned with {111}.