Related papers: Heterogeneous critical nucleation on a completely-…

It is widely believed that heterogeneous nucleation occurs without an activation process when the surface is completely wettable. In this report, we review our previous work [J.Chem.Phys {\bf 134}, 234709 (2011)] to show that the critical…

Phase transformations such as freezing typically start with heterogeneous nucleation. Heterogeneous nucleation near a wetting transition, of a crystalline phase is studied. The wetting transition occurs at or near a vapour-liquid transition…

A phase eld approach is developed to model wetting and heterogeneous crystal nucleation of an undercooled pure liquid in contact with a sharp wall. We discuss various choices for the boundary condition at the wall and determine the…

Heterogeneous nucleation is a process wherein extrinsic impurities facilitate freezing by lowering nucleation barriers and constitutes the dominant mechanism for crystallization in most systems. Classical nucleation theory (\textsc{Cnt})…

Homogeneous nucleation of a new phase near a second, continuous, transition, is considered. The continuous transition is in the metastable region associated with the first-order phase transition, one of whose coexisting phases is…

The basic physics of nucleation in solid \hl{single-crystal} nanoparticles is revealed by a phase-field theory that includes surface energy, chemical reactions and coherency strain. In contrast to binary fluids, which form arbitrary contact…

Crystallization of supersaturated liquids usually starts by heterogeneous nucleation. Mounting evidence shows that even homogeneous nucleation in simple liquids takes place in two steps; first a dense amorphous precursor forms, and the…

In the standard treatment of heterogeneous nucleation on a surface, the energy of the surface is assumed to be homogeneous. Often its value is obtained from some macroscopic measurement. We ask the question what happens if we consider the…

Heterogeneous nucleation on catalytic surfaces plunged into a fluid is described through a stochastic model. To generate this non-equilibrium process we assume that the turn on of a electrostatic potential triggers a complex dynamics that…

Heterogeneous nucleation is central to many familiar first-order phase transitions such as the freezing of water and the solidification of metals, and it can also play a crucial role in cosmology. We examine nucleation seeded by preexisting…

Phase diagrams of some globular proteins have a fluid-fluid transition as well as a fluid-crystal transition. Homogeneous nucleation of the crystal from the fluid phase near the critical point of the fluid-fluid transition is examined. As…

Line-tension-induced {scenario of heterogeneous nucleation} is studied for a lens-shaped nucleus with a finite contact angle nucleated on a spherical substrate and on the bottom of the wall of a spherical cavity. The effect of line tension…

Motivated by unexpected morphologies of the emerging liquid phase (channels, bulges, droplets) at the edge of thin, melting alkane terraces, we propose a new heterogeneous nucleation pathway. The competition between bulk and interfacial…

Homogeneous nucleation of the new phase of one transition near a second phase transition is considered. The system has two phase transitions, we study the nucleation of the new phase of one of these transitions under conditions such that we…

What makes a material a good ice nucleating agent? Despite the importance of heterogeneous ice nucleation to a variety of fields, from cloud science to microbiology, major gaps in our understanding of this ubiquitous process still prevent…

The dynamics of phase transitions plays a crucial r\^ole in the so-called interface between high energy particle physics and cosmology. Many of the interesting results generated during the last fifteen years or so rely on simplified…

We look at the wetting of a pure fluid in contact with a charged flat surface. In the bulk, the fluid is a classical van der Waals fluid containing dissociated ions. The presence of wall and ions leads to strong dielectrophoretic and…

Clarifying the factors that control the contact angle of a liquid on a solid substrate is a long-standing scientific problem pertinent across physics, chemistry and materials science. Progress has been hampered by the lack of a…

Nucleation of a new phase almost always starts at a surface. This surface is almost always assumed not to change with time. However, surfaces can roughen, partially dissolve and change chemically with time. Each of these irreversible…

In many systems, nucleation of a stable solid may occur in the presence of other (often more than one) metastable phases. These may be polymorphic solids or even liquid phases. In such cases, nucleation of the solid phase from the melt may…