Related papers: Amorphous Precursors of Crystallization during Spi…
Understanding the mechanism of nucleation of the stable phase inside the metastable parent phase during a first order phase transition has been a subject of outstanding interest in natural science. The problem becomes even more challenging…
The stability of organic solar cells is strongly affected by the morphology of the photoactive layers, whose separated crystalline and/or amorphous phases are kinetically quenched far from their thermodynamic equilibrium during the…
The initial production and dynamical expansion of hot spherical nuclei are examined as the first stage both in the projectile-multifragmentation and in central collision processes. The initial temperatures, which are necessary for entering…
Spherical nanoclusters and nanoparticles are rising materials whose functional design provides many useful applications ranging from catalysis, molecular sensing, gas storage to drug targeting and delivery. Here, we develop phenomenological…
We study self-assembly in a colloidal suspension of magnetic particles by performing comprehensive molecular dynamics simulations of the Stockmayer (SM) model which comprises spherical particles decorated by a magnetic moment. The SM…
Dynamical density functional simulations reveal structural aspects of crystal nucleation in undercooled liquids: the first appearing solid is amorphous, which promotes the nucleation of bcc crystals, but suppresses the appearance of the fcc…
We present a generalized Landau-Brazovskii free energy for the solidification of chiral molecules on a spherical surface in the context of the assembly of viral shells. We encounter two types of icosahedral solidification transitions. The…
We study the possibility of the spinodal decomposition in the induction period of the polymer crystallization. This phenomenon was first reported in an X-ray scattering experiment, and has still been controversial due to various experiments…
We report on a large scale computer simulation study of crystal nucleation in hard spheres. Through a combined analysis of real and reciprocal space data, a picture of a two-step crystallization process is supported: First dense, amorphous…
We present a phenomenological treatment of diffusion-driven martensitic phase transformations in multi-component crystalline solids that arise from non-convex free energies in mechanical and chemical variables. The treatment describes…
Many structural materials (metal alloys, polymers, minerals, etc.) are formed by quenching liquids into crystalline solids. This highly non-equilibrium process often leads to polycrystalline growth patterns that are broadly termed…
Nucleation plays a critical role in the birth of crystals and is associated with a vast array of phenomena such as protein crystallization and ice formation in clouds. Despite numerous experimental and theoretical studies, many aspects of…
Bifurcations in kinetic pathways decide the evolution of a system. An example is crystallization, in which the thermodynamically stable polymorph may not form due to kinetic hindrance. Here, we use confined self-assembly to investigate the…
We discuss the dynamics of phase separation through the process of spinodal decomposition in a Fermi superfluid with population imbalance. We discuss this instability first in terms of a phenomenological Landau theory. Working within the…
Recent experiments in some polymer melts quenched below the melting temperature have reported spinodal kinetics in small-angle X ray scattering before the emergence of crystalline structure. To explain these observations we propose that the…
We investigate the atomistic mechanism of homogeneous nucleation during solidification in molybdenum employing transition path sampling. The mechanism is characterized by the formation of a pre-structured region of high bond-orientational…
Crystallization often proceeds through successive stages that lead to a gradual increase in organization. Using molecular simulation, we determine the nucleation pathway for solid solutions of copper and gold. We identify a new nucleation…
Tailoring the nanomorphology of organic photoactive layers through a specialized chain of processing steps is an imperative challenge on the path towards reliable and performant organic electronic manufacturing. This hurdle generally proves…
We investigate the early part of the crystal nucleation process in the hard sphere fluid using data produced by computer simulation. We find that hexagonal order manifests continuously in the overcompressed liquid, beginning approximately…
Recent advances in classical density functional theory are combined with stochastic process theory and rare event techniques to formulate a theoretical description of nucleation, including crystallization, that can predict nonclassical…