Superheating is the metastable persistence of a low-temperature phase above its equilibrium transition temperature.
A liquid maintained above its equilibrium boiling temperature at the imposed pressure. A barrier to nucleation can delay its conversion into vapor, making this a metastable state.
A solid can locally exceed its solidus because a thin solute-diffusion layer changes composition faster than thermal conduction changes temperature. Near a melting phase boundary, a depleted solid can join the equilibrium solidus at the interface while the adjacent, more concentrated solid remains above its own lower solidus. The assumed single sharp interface is then thermodynamically unstable to additional melting and may be replaced by a mushy layer.
Articles by others on the same topic
Superheating is a process in which a liquid is heated to a temperature above its boiling point without it actually boiling. This phenomenon occurs under certain conditions where the liquid is kept in a stable state, often due to the absence of nucleation sites or impurities that would facilitate the formation of bubbles. In practical applications, superheating is commonly observed in heating water or other liquids in a microwave.