Related papers: Heterogeneous nucleation on a completely wettable …
Homogeneous nucleation of a new phase near an Ising-like critical point of another phase transition is studied. A scaling analysis shows that the free energy barrier to nucleation contains a singular term with the same scaling as the order…
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…
Classical nucleation theory (CNT), linking rare nucleation events to the free energy landscape of a growing nucleus, is central to understanding phase-change kinetics in passive fluids. Nucleation in non-equilibrium systems is much harder…
Phase field theory is widely used to model multi-phase flows. A drop can shrink or grow spontaneously due to the redistribution of interface and bulk energies to minimize the system energy. In this paper, the spontaneous behaviour of a drop…
The development of substrates with a switchable wettability is on a fast pace. The limit of switching frequencies and contact angle differences between substrate states are steadily pushed further. We investigate the behavior of a droplet…
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…
Quantum criticality is the intriguing possibility offered by the laws of quantum mechanics when the wave function of a many-particle physical system is forced to evolve continuously between two distinct, competing ground states. This…
Coarse grained molecular dynamics simulations are presented in which the sensitivity of the ice nucleation rate to the hydrophilicity of a graphene nanoflake is investigated. We find that an optimal interaction strength for promoting ice…
The interplay between crystal nucleation and the structure of the metastable fluid has been a topic of significant debate over recent years. In particular, it has been suggested that even in simple model systems such as hard or charged…
Among all the freezing transitions, that of water into ice is probably the most relevant to biology, physics, geology or atmospheric science. In this work we investigate homogeneous ice nucleation by means of computer simulations. We…
Nucleonic matter displays a quantum liquid structure, but in some cases finite nuclei behave like molecules composed of clusters of protons and neutrons. Clustering is a recurrent feature in light nuclei, from beryllium to nickel. For…
It is surprisingly difficult to freeze water. Almost all ice that forms under "mild" conditions (temperatures > -40 degrees Celsius) requires the presence of a nucleating agent - a solid particle that facilitates the freezing process - such…
Close to sinusoidal substrates, simple fluids may undergo a filling transition, in which the fluid passes from a dry to a filled state, where the interface remains unbent but bound to the substrate. Increasing the surface field, the…
Crystallization is one of the most important phase transformations of first order. In the case of metals and alloys, the liquid phase is the parent phase of materials production. The conditions of the crystallization process control the…
The accumulation of self-propelled particles on repulsive barriers is a widely observed feature in active matter. Despite being implicated in a broad range of biological processes, from biofilm formation to cytoskeletal movement, wetting of…
The effect of subcritical hadron bubbles on a first-order quark-hadron phase transition is studied. These subcritical hadron bubbles are created due to thermal fluctuations, and can introduce a finite amount of phase mixing (quark phase…
The transition from a nematic to an isotropic state in a self-closing spherical liquid crystal shell with tangential alignment is a stimulating phenomenon to investigate, as the topology dictates that the shell exhibits local isotropic…
We consider the nucleation process associated with capillary condensation of a vapor in a hydrophobic cylindrical pore (capillary evaporation). The liquid-vapor transition is described within the framework of a simple lattice model. The…
Flat walls facilitate the condensation of a supersaturated vapor: Classical theory of heterogeneous nucleation predicts that the free energy barrier $\Delta F_{\rm het}^*$ which needs to be overcome for the formation of sphere-cap shaped…
Transient homogeneous nucleation is studied in the limit of large critical sizes. Starting from pure monomers, three eras of transient nucleation are characterized in the classic Becker-D\"oring kinetic equations with two different models…