Thermodynamic modelling of Ag–Si nanophase diagram including shape effect

The CALPHAD method is an especially effective method to calculate the nanophase diagram of systems by combining the thermodynamic database for the bulk with that of the nanosystems. In the present study, the influence of particle size and shape has been studied for the Ag–Si system. The Ag–Si system’s thermodynamic characteristics are strongly impacted by the change in particle size. The variation in melting temperature of nanoparticles due to changes in their shape has also been calculated for different shapes like thin film, icosahedron, wire, spherical, hexahedron, octahedron, and tetrahedron for Ag nanoparticles. It is found that melting temperature depression is minimum for thin films and maximum for tetrahedron-shaped nanoparticles. In this study, the calculated nanophase diagram and the bulk experimental data were compared.