Development of containerless modulation calorimetry for specific heat measurements of undercooled melts

The specific heat and the resulting entropy, enthalpy and Gibbs free energy functions of highly undercooled liquids are essential in the analysis of the nucleation kinetics of crystallization and glass formation. However, for metallic systems the measured data are very scarce and in general limited to low melting point metals and alloys. For alloys which exhibit higher melting points such data generally do not exist. In order to measure the specific heat of metals and alloys at elevated temperatures a new modulation method is being developed. Experimental results for solid niobium samples demonstrate the feasibility of this approach.