Related papers: Phase transitions in layered crystals
The succession of suggested mechanisms of solid-state phase transitions - Second-order, Lambda, Martensitic, Displacive, Topological, Order-Disorder, Soft-mode, Incommensurate, Scaling and Quantum - are analyzed and explained why they…
The Landau theory of phase transitions has been re-examined under the framework of a modified mean field theory in ferroelectrics. By doing so, one can see that there are two atomic movements involved in the ferroelectric phase transition;…
Phase transformations can be difficult to characterize at the microscopic level due to the inability to directly observe individual atomic motions. Model colloidal systems, by contrast, permit the direct observation of individual particle…
The four-state model is proposed for description of phase transition in ferroelectric crystals of DMAGaS and DMAAlS type. Thermodynamical functions of the model are obtained in the mean field approximation. The phase transition between…
The most important recent results in the theory of phase transitions and quantum effects in quantum anharmonic crystals are presented and discussed. In particular, necessary and sufficient conditions for a phase transition to occur at some…
The topological theory of phase transitions was proposed on the basis of different arguments, the most important of which are: a direct evidence of the relation between topology and phase transitions for some exactly solvable models; an…
Metastable phases may be spontaneously formed from other metastable phases through nucleation. Here we demonstrate the spontaneous formation of a metastable phase from an unstable equilibrium by spinodal decomposition, which leads to a…
We review how phase-field models contributed to the understanding of various aspects of crystal nucleation including homogeneous and heterogeneous processes, and their role in microstructure evolution. We recall results obtained both by the…
A Landau theory is presented for the structural transition of electrically stabilized colloidal crystals under shear. The model suggests that a structural transition from an ordered layered colloidal crystal into a disordered structure…
We consider the nature of the fluid-solid phase transition in a polydisperse mixture of hard spheres. For a sufficiently polydisperse mixture crystallisation occurs with simultaneous fractionation. At the fluid-solid boundary, a broad fluid…
A new point of view about the deep origin of thermodynamic phase transitions is sketched. The main idea is to link the appearance of phase transitions to some major topology change of suitable submanifolds of phase space instead of linking…
Finite systems such as atomic nuclei present at phase transition specific features different from those observed at the thermodynamic limit. Several characteristic signals were found in samples of events resulting from heavy ion collisions…
The results of differential-thermal analysis of various samples as well as dielectric measurements of solid solutions $TlIn_{1-x}Fe_x^{56,57}S_2$ are presented. It has been established that phase transitions become blurred and shift to low…
The skyrmion crystal is a periodic array of a swirling topological spin texture. Since it is regarded as an interference pattern by multiple helical spin density waves, the texture changes with the relative phases among the constituent…
Understanding the mechanisms underlying crystal formation is crucial. For most systems, crystallization typically goes through a nucleation process that involves dynamics that happen at short time and length scales. Due to this, molecular…
Nucleation is an activated process in which the system has to overcome a free energy barrier in order for a first-order phase transition between the metastable and the stable phases to take place. In the liquid-to-solid transition the…
We analyze a system of polar molecules in a one-dimensional optical lattice. By controlling the internal structure of the polar molecules with static electric and microwave fields, we demonstrate the appearance of a quantum phase transition…
Topological phases of matter are often understood and predicted with the help of crystal symmetries, although they don't rely on them to exist. In this chapter we review how topological phases have been recently shown to emerge in amorphous…
In ferroelectricity, atomic-scale dipole moments interact collectively to produce strong electro-mechanical coupling and switchable macroscopic polarization. Hence, the functionality of ferroelectrics emerges at a solid-solid phase…
Liquid crystal materials exhibiting up to three nematic phases are reported. Dielectric response measurements show that while the lower temperature nematic phase has ferroelectric order and the highest temperature nematic phase is apolar,…