Related papers: Phase nucleation in curved space
Phase transitions ruled by nucleation and growth can occur by nonrandom arrangement of nuclei. This is verified, for instance, in thin film growth at solid surfaces by vapor condensation or by electrodeposition where, around each nucleus, a…
When a system is brought to a metastable state, nuclei of the equilibrium phase form and grow. This is the well-known nucleation and growth of first-order phase transitions. Near a critical point of a continuous phase transition, critical…
An analytical model for the evolution of the boundary of the new phase in transformations ruled by nucleation and growth is presented. Both homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation have been considered: The former includes transformations…
We study the evolution from a liquid to a crystal phase in two-dimensional curved space. At early times, while crystal seeds grow preferentially in regions of low curvature, the lattice frustration produced in regions with high curvature is…
Nucleation is the onset of a first-order phase transition by which a metastable phase transforms into a more stable one. Such a phase transition occurs when an initial system initially in equilibrium is destabilized by the change of an…
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…
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…
We study irreversible dimer nucleation on top of terraces during epitaxial growth in one and two dimensions, for all values of the step-edge barrier. The problem is solved exactly by transforming it into a first passage problem for a random…
Nucleation, commonly associated with discontinuous transformations between metastable and stable phases, is crucial in fields as diverse as atmospheric science and nanoscale electronics. Traditionally, it is considered a microscopic process…
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…
Homogeneous nucleation, a textbook transition path for phase transitions, is typically understood on thermodynamic grounds through the prism of classical nucleation theory. However, recent studies have suggested the applicability of…
Geometrical arguments suggest that pore-mediated nucleation happens in general in a two-step fashion, the first step being nucleation within the pore, the second being nucleation from the filled pore into solution [Page & Sear, Phys. Rev.…
Phase transformations ruled by non-simultaneous nucleation and growth do not lead to random distribution of nuclei. Since nucleation is only allowed in the untransformed portion of space, positions of nuclei are correlated. In this article…
Strongly first-order phase transitions, i.e., those with a large order parameter, are characterized by a considerable supercooling and high velocities of phase transition fronts. A very strong phase transition may have important…
We consider the effect of nucleation on a one-dimensional stepped surface, finding that step-flow growth is metastable for any strength of the additional step-edge barrier. The surface is made unstable by the formation of a critical…
The kinetics of nucleation of a core-shell composite nucleus that consists of a core of stable final phase surrounded by a wetting layer of intermediate metastable phase is studied using the kinetic theory of binary nucleation not only in…
We show that generic kinetic growth processes with surface relaxations can exhibit a new crumpled phase with short-range orientational order at dimensions $d<4$. A sufficiently strong spatially non-local part of the chemical potential…
Nucleation on top of two-dimensional islands with step edge barriers is investigated using scaling arguments. The nucleation rate is expressed in terms of three basic time scales: The time interval between deposition events, the residence…
We present an experiment on crystallization of packings of macroscopic granular spheres. This system is often considered to be a model for thermally driven atomic or colloidal systems. Cyclically shearing a packing of frictional spheres, we…
A general theory of nucleation for colloids and macromolecules in solution is formulated within the context of fluctuating hydrodynamics. A formalism for the determination of nucleation pathways is developed and stochastic differential…