Cellular growth of lamellar eutectics in undercooled Ag–Cu alloy

Abstract Ag–Cu eutectic alloy was undercooled by the glass flux method and the solidification structure was investigated. It is revealed that when undercooling is not more than 70 K, the large difference in composition between two eutectic phases and very large thermal diffusion coefficient of the liquid result in cellular growth of the lamellar eutectics from the nucleation site. The variation in interface temperature during rapid solidification gives rise to a systematic change in microstructure within the sample. With the distance along the growth direction increasing, the finest lamellar spacing across the cellular eutectic rises, which indicates a gradually decreasing growth velocity of the primary eutectics. The primary lamellar eutectics near the nucleation site solidify under conditions far from equilibrium, and therefore are supersaturated with solute, and then partially remelted and ripened into anomalous eutectics. As undercooling increases, the area of the anomalous eutectics enlarges.