Manifestation of the heterogeneous mechanism upon melting of low-dimensional systems

A melting process that is always heterogeneous in semi-infinite systems having a surface has been analyzed. It has been shown in terms of the classical thermodynamics that, in real one-component systems, a liquid layer on the solid-phase surface is formed at temperatures lower than the reference melting temperature of the bulk material at which the system is completely melted. Depending on the temperature, a liquid layer of particular thickness on the surface is in equilibrium with the other crystalline phase. The heterogeneous melting is shown to influence a number of processes and mechanisms, such as the dispersion of a thin film into droplets, the mechanism of vapor-liquid-solid epitaxy, the mechanism of layer-by-layer crystal growth, and the mechanism of growth of carbon nanotubes.