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Science 12 November 1999:
Vol. 286. no. 5443, p. 1253
DOI: 10.1126/science.286.5443.1253b
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This Week in Science

Melting of a solid normally involves nucleation of the liquid phase at defects or inclusions at its surface. However, if heated rapidly enough with sufficiently high energy, a semiconductor surface can melt completely and homogenously before thermal processes can begin to relax the process. Observing the loss of crystalline order directly requires extremely fast x-ray diffraction methods. Siders et al. (p. 1340; see the Perspective by Nelson) have now used picosecond x-ray pulses to observe such nonthermal melting in single-crystal films of germanium.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)