In a large variety of ideal crystals it was found that when rapidly migrating atoms squashed or annihilated a neighboring vacancy and produced a disordered cluster, the heat of migration stored in the system exceeded the enthalpy increase required for the coordinating atoms of the vacancy to form a liquid phase, i.e. the liquid phase nucleated from vacancies. Volumetric analysis supported this. This vacancy-decomposition model provided quantitative information on the melting point, latent heat and volume change upon melting and hence clarified the melting mechanism.

Melting of Superheated Crystals Initiated on Vacancies. L.W.Wang, Q.Wang, K.Q.Lu: Philosophical Magazine Letters, 2007, 87[1], 19-24