On the surface mechanism of crystal melting

A crystal melting mechanism is proposed. The melting is caused by enhanced thermal expansion of the lattice on the surface and around structure defects. For the microcrystallites formed this way an approximate calculation of parameters is made. The microcrystallites surface area per mole is shown to be thousands of m², the radius within 1.5 to 10 nm, the gaps between microcrystallites — by 30 percent more than the lattice interatomic distance. The mean thermal linear expansion coefficients determined on the crystal surface are roughly ten times as much as the bulk values.