A molecular dynamics simulation of (110) surface premelting in Ni

Molecular dynamics simulations were used to examine the premelting behavior of the (110) surface for an embedded atom method model of pure nickel. The distributions of liquid layer widths were obtained at five temperatures ranging from 2 to 30K below the melting point. The results were used to construct the structural contribution to the disjoining potential, which describes the short-ranged contribution to the thermodynamic driving force for surface premelting.