Abstract
An SiO2‐encapsulated silicon‐on‐silica structure has been used to examine quantitatively the supercooling of Si. Fully melted, isolated Si islands generally exhibit a maximum supercooling of 235 °C, i.e., their freezing occurs at a temperature around 1175 °C. The implications of this behavior for the growth of thin Si films on amorphous substrates via zone melting are presented and briefly discussed.