Related papers: Theory of Nucleation in Phase-separating Nanoparti…
The structure of the tilted phase of monolayer-protected nanoparticles is investigated by means of a simple Ginzburg-Landau model. The theory contains two dimensionless parameters representing the preferential tilt angle and the ratio…
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…
Surface nanobubbles are complex micro- and nanoscale fluid systems. While thermodynamics is believed to dominate nanobubble dynamics, the precise mechanism by which nanobubble evolution is driven by thermodynamics remains unclear. It is…
Despite the simplicity of the water molecule, the kinetics of ice nucleation under natural conditions can be complex. We investigated spontaneously grown ice nuclei using all-atom molecular dynamics simulations and found significant…
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…
It has been conjectured that roughness plays a role in surface nucleation, the tendency for freezing to begin preferentially at the liquid-gas interface. Using high speed imaging, we sought evidence for freezing at the contact line on…
Bubble nucleation in water induced by boiling, gas supersaturation or cavitation usually originates from pre-existing gas cavities trapped into solid defects. Even though the destabilization of such gas pockets, called nuclei, has been…
The phase separation mechanism of a binary liquid mixture off-critically quenched in its miscibility gap is nucleation and growth, its homogeneous phase reaching a metastable equilibrium state. The successive stages of growth of the…
We study the nucleation of nearly-hard charged colloidal particles. We use Monte Carlo simulations in combination with free-energy calculations to accurately predict the phase diagrams of these particles and map them via the freezing…
We study the nucleation of crystalline cluster phases in the generalized exponential model with exponent n=4. Due to the finite value of this pair potential for zero separation, at high densities the system forms cluster crystals with…
Nucleation is an out-of-equilibrium process, which can be strongly affected by the presence of external fields. In this letter, we report a simple extension of classical nucleation theory to systems submitted to an homogeneous shear flow.…
We describe several unexpected phenomena, caused by a solid-solid phase transition (gel-to-crystal) typical for all main classes of lipid substances - phospholipids, triglycerides, diglycerides, alkanes, etc. We discovered that this…
Nucleosynthesis, on the surface of accreting neutron stars, produces a range of chemical elements. We perform molecular dynamics simulations of crystallization to see how this complex composition forms new neutron star crust. We find…
The actual mechanism of polarization switching in ferroelectrics remains a puzzle for many decades, since the usually estimated barrier for nucleation and growth is insurmountable ("paradox of the coercive field"). To analyze the mechanisms…
Crystallization and vitrification of tetrahedral liquids are important both from a fundamental and a technological point of view. Here, we study via extensive umbrella sampling Monte Carlo computer simulations the nucleation barriers for a…
The discrete and charge-separated nature of matter - electrons and nuclei - results in local electrostatic fields that are ubiquitous in nanoscale structures and are determined by their shape, material, and environment. Such fields are…
Non-aligning self-propelled particles with purely repulsive excluded volume interactions undergo athermal motility-induced phase separation into a dilute gas and a dense cluster phase. Here, we use enhanced sampling computational methods…
This study reveals the influence of the surface energy and solid/liquid boundary condition on the breakup mechanism of dewetting ultra-thin polymer films. Using silane self-assembled monolayers, SiO$_2$ substrates are rendered hydrophobic…
We present a phenomenological model of melting in nanoparticles with facets that are only partially wet by their liquid phase. We show that in this model, as the solid nanoparticle seeks to avoid coexistence with the liquid, the…
In order to understand the nuclei which develop during the course of protein folding and unfolding, we examine phase segregation of a single heteropolymer chain which occurs in equilibrium. These segregated conformations are characterized…