Differences between solid superheating and liquid supercooling

The thermodynamic and kinetic behaviors for solid superheating and liquid supercooling were critically examined and compared via molecular-dynamics simulations. It is shown that the large elastic energy associated with internal melting and solid-liquid interface disorder play important roles in superheating. The growth rate is anisotropic for supercooling, but isotropic for superheating. Supercooling can be well described by the classical nucleation theory, whereas superheating shows many exceptions. The underlying mechanisms for these differences are discussed.