Using simulations we identify three dynamic regimes in supersaturated isotropic fluid states of short hard rods: (i) for moderate supersaturations we observe nucleation of multi-layered crystalline clusters; (ii) at higher supersaturation, we find nucleation of small crystallites which arrange into long-lived locally favored structures that get kinetically arrested, while (iii) at even higher supersaturation the dynamic arrest is due to the conventional cage-trapping glass transition. For longer rods we find that the formation of the (stable) smectic phase out of a supersaturated isotropic state is strongly suppressed by an isotropic-nematic spinodal instability that causes huge spinodal-like orientation fluctuations with nematic clusters diverging in size. Our results show that glassy dynamics and spinodal instabilities set kinetic limits to nucleation in a highly supersaturated hard-rod fluids.
@article{arxiv.1005.4571,
title = {Glassy dynamics, spinodal fluctuations, and the kinetic limit of hard-rod nucleation},
author = {Ran Ni and Simone Belli and Rene van Roij and Marjolein Dijkstra},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1005.4571},
year = {2012}
}