Reactive wetting in the liquid-silicon/solid-carbon system

The wettability of glassy carbon by liquid silicon has been investigated at 1430 degrees C in argon by using techniques of both in situ formation and capillary formation of sessile drops. Analyses of the results showed that there are three distinct contributions of reaction to wetting: (a) dissolution of solid substrate carbon in liquid silicon; (b) formation of a continuous SiC layer at the solid side of the interface, and (c) a contribution of the free energy released by the reaction localized at the interface between liquid silicon and solid carbon.